Itemized Instructions on Getting the Glow
by thedorkygirl
Summary: They've just made plans for a horsedrawn carriage and a movie night, so this gives her a perfect excuse to knock over a salt shaker as she leaves the diner. For the LukeLorelai ficathon, written for Macha.
1. chapter one

title: Itemized Instructions on Getting the Glow   
**author**: Keren Ziv   
**disclaimer**: I don't own Gilmore Girls.   
**rating**: It's just barely PG-13. We've seen it on the show.   
**spoilers**: post-finale, S3   
**summary**: 'They've just made plans for a horse-drawn carriage and a movie night, so this gives her a perfect excuse to knock over a salt shaker as she leaves the diner.' For the Luke/Lorelai ficathon, written for Macha.

I want to give a huge thank you to Megan Reilly for her amazing and speedy beta of this monster fic! She caught my word mix-ups and was always very encouraging in her feedback! That deserves an award.  
  
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He starts pouring her coffee as soon as she stumbles into the diner making noises that he's only ever heard on a public broadcast station's wildlife special. Scrutinizing her, he can see that she's at least taken the time to do her hair and make-up properly, but perhaps had given up when it came to her wardrobe. 

Barefoot and dressed in a pair of what looked to be men's boxers -- where had she gotten those? -- and a t-shirt with the words 'the real Honey Daniels' stamped across it, she carries a dry-cleaner's bag which presumably holds her suit for the day in it and in the crook of her arm balances precariously a pair of clean pumps.

"Kuh. Kuh. Kuh," she somehow sorts out how to articulate as she plops down onto a stool, the very picture of fatigue and enervation. She motions with her free hand in a sort of circular motion as if she were able to conjure by violently drawing an object midair. "Kuh-ffff."

Next to her, Kirk gives her a look of great superiority as he sips his hot cocoa. Luke warns Kirk silently with a look to not state the fact that he has been in the diner since it opened. For one, Lorelai is not putting on this show of hers to hear that Kirk got up before five-thirty to make it to the diner at opening. For another, Luke does not want Lorelai to know how much sad, sad time he spends with Kirk in the early hours of the morning.

Kirk turns on his stool, facing away from Lorelai, though Luke notices an ear left handily pointed in their direction.

"For goodness sakes, Lorelai," he says as he hands her the cup, "it's six-thirty."

Lorelai shudders, managing to rack her entire body in convulsions without spilling a drop of her precious drink. She's an acrobat; she's a contortionist; she's taken years of lessons on poise as conducted by Emily Gilmore. However it's accomplished, Lorelai never loses a drop or a crumb of anything that she's holding, no matter how powerful her movements.

"In the _morning_, Luke," she informs him after her first dramatic gulp. "Six-thirty in the _morning_. Since when have you ever seen me before seven-thirty in the morning? And it doesn't count if I haven't yet gone to bed." She pauses. Luke knows that this is for affect. "Never! Never willingly."

"Perhaps you should try it more often."

"There wasn't a sun when I woke up. Doesn't that make it still night?"

He's not sure why Lorelai has this aversion to waking early. It seems not to be a genetic thing, as he's seen Rory walking in town before the sun's fully woken on plenty of mornings, and he's quite certain that Mrs. Gilmore would rather die than be caught having a lay-about. Luke doubts that Lorelai developed her fondness for midmorning awakenings from her father, who, he has the impression, is currently more married to his work than to his wife.

Of course, Lorelai could have simply picked up the habit as a young adult, when it was her duty in life to do things as differently and difficultly as possible for what her parents wished of her. As he again takes in Lorelai's bedraggled appearance -- neither of the elder Gilmores would have been seen at a dog fight in their daughter's apparel, though he isn't banking on seeing them at a dog fight in any case -- Luke has to conclude that his hypothesis must have at least some basis in fact.

"I would think that watching the sun rise would be one of those things you liked."

"I can tape the sun set and just play it backwards. Did you know that men come and steal my trash?"

Typical of her, Lorelai makes it seem as if men dressed all in black with ski masks and pistols complete with silencers on their ankles have come and taken her garbage before speeding away in a dark colour SUV instead of sanitation workers in an old truck that needs its oil changed.

"Today is collection day. Where did you think it went?"

"I assumed that perhaps some of Babette's gnomes ate it. I thought that Tuesday were takeout for them."

There are many things that he could be doing right now. He could be washing tables, refilling salt, or putting the two-thirds empty ketchup bottle upside-down on top of the half-full one. However, he is instead listening to Lorelai Gilmore talk when it is too early for her to be coherent. Luke now has in his head a vision of a large garden gnome prowling in the wee hours of the morning across the gardens and into the trash bins of Stars Hollow residents.

He decides not to answer her -- because it really is just encouraging her, and who wants to do that this early in the morning? -- and instead takes her now-empty mug and refills it with fresh coffee. Lorelai does her customary acts: she thanks him, takes the cup, and inhales deeply. This is the second cup, where the first cup has woken her enough to have her appreciate this one.

"I've been thinking," Lorelai beings. She waves off the comment that Luke was about to interject (she knew him far too well to be able to anticipate one without even an intake of breath from him) and continues. "I've been thinking that you probably need to see some good action and science fiction movies."

This is so unlike Lorelai Gilmore that Luke has to curb his desire to rush over and touch her forehead. Kirk turns around so quickly in his stool that he looks liable to fall for a few moments but steadies himself at the last possible second.

"Are you certain that you're awake yet?"

"C'mon, Luke, it'll be fun. You'll come over, and we'll have a marathon. We'll pick the most fun. I'll even have Jackson help me with some. It can't be too bad. He watches the Matrix, I hear."

"Lorelai, _I_ don't watch the Matrix," Luke chides her gently.

"So that takes three off my list. Want to do it? Saturday night? You bring food and I'll bring the movies."

He pretends to think it over for almost half a second, but he agrees easily, because, really, what's the reasoning with saying no to Lorelai when she knows very well that he has nothing planned for Saturday night and would have probably spent it with her anyway?

"Sure, sounds like fun."

But it is apparent that Lorelai isn't satisfied with this, because she stares up at him with raised brows and purses her lips as if contemplating something of deep importance. Luke knows better than to exit this scene, as he'll only be called back in once his presence is again required, so he stays put, arms akimbo, waiting. Even Kirk is watching Lorelai with unveiled interest.

"We should do something."

"Do something? Didn't we just plan to watch a movie at your place?"

But Lorelai is already off and continuing her first sentence, never having heeded his contribution to the conversation.

"We never did have a very good time at the Dragonfly that night," she tells him. "What with Kirk running around naked, Jason being a jerk, my parents officially debuting themselves as separated, and Rory -- well, we never did have a very good time."

"You wanna ... go away?" Luke asks slowly, trying to make certain that he's on the same topic that Lorelai is.

"Not go away, necessarily. I don't want to leave work so soon into the summer season, especially if I land the clients that I'm meeting with today. I like Michel, but you can't trust him to not scare off little kids from a candy story. He's my pannikin boss for the time being. And I can't leave it all on Sookie's shoulders, not right now." She rubs her index finger and thumb together as if in contemplation. "We could just try the Dragonfly again, you know. Without anybody who has ever lived within an hour of us coming down upon us like some sort of plague."

To Luke, this is a great idea. Though he and Lorelai have been dating for three weeks, they had yet to get into a more intimate relationship. Luke couldn't help but lay a good deal of the reasoning for that on Lorelai's own shoulders. Every time things between them got more heated, she seemed to break something. Generally, that something was very expensive, or very liquidly and staining, or, in once case, very much on fire.

To have Lorelai initiate a romantic weekend getaway -- even if they were only getting away as far as the Dragonfly! -- was an encouraging sign. He has been beginning to think of himself as some sort of leper when it came to sex with Lorelai. 'Don't wanna go there; there isn't anything safe.' Maybe she was feeling more up to a romantic liaison with him? Inwardly, he cringed at the idea that his girlfriend had to work herself up to having sex with him.

"Yeah," he answers gruffly. "Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. When do you want to do this?"

"Next weekend? That way, we have a little time to plan, but it isn't so big a deal as to be weeks and weeks away. Besides, we've already made plans for this weekend."

"Excuse me, Lorelai," Kirk interjects. He has leaned over and placed his head and shoulders in front of Lorelai. She scoots a bit to allow him more room. "I could not help but overhear part of your conversation. The diner is not crowded, and we are sitting very closely together --"

"-- and you're a sad, lonely man," Luke mutters.

"-- but it occurred to me that perhaps you and Luke would enjoy a ride in a horse-drawn carriage."

"No, Kirk," Luke states. "Absolutely not. We are not going to be drug around by you, panting and heaving, while we are trying to ignore the town."

"I said, Luke, a _horse-drawn_ carriage." From beside his seat, Kirk draws a bundle of large flyers. On them is mimeographed what appears to be an advertisement. "With a horse pulling you around select areas on the property of the Dragonfly Inn. It's part of my new job there."

Luke turns to Lorelai, casting a searching eye upon her. She smiles and shrugs as she toys with the remains of her coffee.

"Did you give him that job?"

"Well, I may have. However, it hasn't begun yet."

Kirk sees this as an opportunity to continue on the discussion on his newest entrepreneurial set-up. He hands a flyer each to Luke and Lorelai, then carefully places the remaining flyers -- more than the town's population, Luke estimates -- by the side of his chair.

"As you can see, I've estimated a start date approximately three weeks from now, under the assumption that you and the rest of the staff will want to give me several different test rides each in varying conditions." Kirk plucks a date book from his lap and opens it up to a multicolored monthly calendar. "I consulted the National Weather Bureau and Mother's almanac -- she buys one every year, see, for the accuracy that she's found them to have -- and there is going to be a storm two Monday nights from now, lasting until midmorning Tuesday. These will be the perfect conditions for a pluvious test run."

"What in the world are you talking about, Kirk?" Luke manages to keep his voice down. "Test runs?"

"I agreed to hire Kirk," Lorelai explains, "only if the staff were to be given test rides to see how well he performed his duties. It's not much of an inconvenience to Kirk. I mean, he's already got the carriage, and the horses are ours ...." She trails off, a thoughtful look upon her face. Luke doesn't like where he's certain that this is going. "You know what, Kirk? We'll do it! Friday night. You can take Luke and me for a carriage-ride on Friday night."

"Lorelai!"

"C'mon, live a little. It'll be fun."

Luke seriously doubts the veracity of this statement. In his experience -- and it has been considerable -- any business concerning Kirk has its ups and downs, with far more downs than ups. He's frustrated when he can't articulate that quite how he wants to say it to Lorelai.

"I don't want to be pulled around in a carriage."

"We're helping a hardworking laborer out. In today's economy, what else can we do?"

He distrusts how easily he gives in to her, but he nods, and she smiles victoriously before gathering up her stuff and slipping off of the chair.

"Good-bye, Lorelai," Kirk says solemnly. "And thank you."

Lorelai smiles up at Luke, the grin on her face telling him that she knows how she played him a few seconds earlier. She leans across the counter to kiss him, and that of course is the difference from every other day before three weeks ago.

She backs out, eyes on him, a grin on her lip. They've just made plans for a horse-drawn carriage and a movie night, so this gives her a perfect excuse to knock over a salt shaker as she leaves the diner. Luke watches her closely, trying to keep his eyes on her. It's really very dangerous for her to back out, so why is she temping fate?

Kirk says from his seat, "Hey, she didn't break anything this time."

His words are followed by the heavy thud and crack of a coffee cup and an indignant squeal of pain.  
  
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tbc...


	2. chapter two

**disclaimers** in chapter one.

* * *

The phone rings in the midst of dessert, something so chocolate and delicious that extra pounds are gained simply by watching it be delivered onto one's plate. Ignoring her grandmother's look of annoyance and great tribulation, Rory takes the call.

"Hello?"

"I broke a cup!"

It's her mother on the other end. Rory mouths that to her grandmother, who looks slightly less stern when she hears this news and a bit more uncomfortable. Lorelai and Emily have yet to speak on the phone, much less in person, since that disastrous night at the Dragonfly three weeks ago. They aren't fighting exactly, but the relationship is more strained than usual and needs a cooling-off period so as to make everything smooth once more.

"That's great!" She takes a large gulp of tea and has a moment of feeling very British (drinking tea! drinking tea!) before continuing. "Did you spill it on anybody?"

"Only Taylor. He would have made the same amount of fuss had I spilt it on the floor."

Rory nods in agreement, then remembers that her mother is currently on another continent. "That's true."

"It was so awesome. I was walking out of the diner, maintaining eye-contact, just like you told me --"

"Wait, were these actions performed simultaneously?" Rory asks. "Because that doesn't sound exactly .... safe."

From over her fork, Grandma watches Rory's side of the conversation with unveiled interest. It pains Rory that the relationship between her mother and grandmother is so knotty as to make them get their information on each other from secondary sources. Grandma and Mom are pretending not to fight, and no amount of hinting and nudging from Rory will get them easy with one another any faster than they wish. Rory is once again thankful that she and her mother have a good relationship. Even stumbling blocks -- such as the terrible, ridiculous night three weeks ago -- are just that: stumbling blocks.

"-- and then Kirk had to ruin it."

Rory waits expectantly for her mother to finish for all of three seconds before she realizes that a game's being played upon her. She sighs lightly, because her mother has given her ninety percent of the story, and now she's waiting to be asked for the last ten percent. Rory isn't certain, but she thinks that she might have created the game when she was a child, coming home from school. No matter that Rory started it, her mother found a way to monopolize it.

"How did Kirk ruin it, Mom?"

"Glad you asked!" her mother returns brightly. "He says to Luke -- and I quote -- 'She hasn't broken anything yet!' You see, it was the 'yet' that threw me."

This sounds strange to Rory. She can't quite place what's wrong, though, so she falls back on a tried and true strategy: confirmation.

"Are you certain that he said 'yet?'"

"Are you doubting my ability to remember a simple conversation that I had only ten minutes ago?"

Rory checks her watch, then does some math in her head. As she comes to her difference, she smiles. If she's right, then there is an even higher chance than usual that her mother is embellishing the story. Mom has been known to hallucinate in the early hours of the morning, especially if the number of cups of coffee that she has had is less than the time it is divided by two.

"Mom, ten minute ago was six-fifty-eight for you."

"Actually, it was two minutes past seven. One of our watches sucks."

"I'm just saying, Kirk happens to be a really optimistic person. I find it hard to believe that he added the 'yet.'"

"He added the yet, Rory. I'm certain of it."

"Mom, you were certain that William Hung would outsell Clay Aiken."

"I say the numbers are fixed."

"So how's Luke?"

"Whoa, Rory, I just got whiplash from your abrupt conversation change!" Mom exclaims. "Excuse me while I go get myself checked out at a good chiropractor. You wouldn't happen to know a good chiropractor, would you? I've never actually been to one. Well, okay, I lie. When I was eleven, my mother was certain that my backpack -- only, we called it a book bag, because more expensive schools call them book bags -- was too heavy and causing me to slouch. So Emily took me to three chiropractors, all of whom told her that I was just lazy."

"Congratulations."

"I started young."

"So, Mom, are you going to get back to my question? We've talked about him all conversation without actually, you know, talking about him."

Rory actually has her suspicions about why her mother is reluctant to speak about Luke, beginning and ending with the short life of one of the diner's mugs. However, she is definitely not going to be touching down in that area too heavily. She and her mother had briefly spoken on it about a week ago, and Rory is still trying to strike the conversation from her mind. If she never things about her mother and Luke getting it on -- or _not _getting it on! -- again, it would be all too late. Unless Mom starts in with crazy dreams that Rory is forced to analyze to death, well, Rory is looking forward to a long retirement of _that_ topic between the two remaining Lorelai Gilmores.

"Luke is ..." Mom's voice trails off, and Rory can hear something lighter in there. Mentally, she makes a note to remind Luke that she took a three week course in karate when she was nine, so that he had better not hurt her mother. "Luke is good. We made plans. For this weekend and next."

"Oh, that's great, Mom! What are you going to do?"

"It may be a slow burn, babe, but, I gotta tell ya, this is a calefacient relationship, mark my words."

"You're calescent, marked. Continue."

"Well, this Saturday, we're going to have a movie night. I'm introducing him to all the greatest B-movie action and science fiction flicks that I can find."

"Good choice, good choice," Rory interjects.

"I'm even sneaking in a couple of A-movies, just to keep him on his toes. I'm going to gage his goof-factor by how well he knows each selection."

"I hereby suggest the first Matrix movie and the third."

"You're right. Watching that Zion scene -- AKA 'nipple town' -- in the second movie would just be too weird," her mother agreed. "However, he's already vetoed the entire series."

"That scoundrel!"

"That's what I said, but I was afraid to start a scene, as I could hear Taylor starting the Shoppe up next door, and we all know that he comes running at the first sign of violence."

"And we're well aware of how you would have become violent with Luke, Mother."

"Rory!" Mom sounds scandalized. "It's the Matrix! I would, of course, have demonstrated some of the better moves out of the films."

"Forgive me, I'd forgotten."

"It's okay, young Padiwan. You too one day shall be as all knowledgeable as I am."

"Cool. I look forward to it."

"So, whatcha doin' in merry ole England today?"

"We're slumming it in about thirty minutes," she informs her mother. "Our lunch has to settle first."

"Ah, yes, how well I know the settling of lunch." Her mother's voices sounded sage and obnoxious. Rory grinned. "You have to let lunch settle before the hour it takes to wait to get into the pool can start, you know."

"Of course."

"So, slumming it?"

"We're taking the London Underground back to the hotel."

"Oh, doing it proletariat style."

"Yup."

"So, how are you, babe?"

Rory realizes that they've spent the entire conversation first talking about Luke and then pointedly not talking about him. She gives a little laugh as she replies to Mom, to make sure that her mother realizes how cool she is with it, though she isn't entirely sure that she is cool with it or why she should be.

"Very jamesjoy."

"Thatta girl," her mother said. "So, I'm at the Dragonfly, I have to go, but love and kisses."

Rory makes silly smooching sound over the phone to her mother, who reciprocates with even more absurd-sounding noises. Across the table, Grandma pushes away with plate with a sigh of defeat and wipes her mouth with her napkin before tossing it in her plate. Shocked, Rory flicks the napkin off and pulls her grandmother's half-eaten dessert to her.

"Love you, bye!"

"Bye, babe. Oh, yeah, Luke and I are spending next weekend at the Dragonfly!"

Before Rory can reply to this news that was just thrown at her, the connection is cut, and she is left listening to a dial tone. Flicking off her phone and feeling bemused, Rory dives into her grandmother's dessert, her attention half on her own neglected plate to her left. Grandma rolls her eyes, but refrains from commenting, though Rory knows that she's dying to hear all about Lorelai and, in a more girlish yet matronly way, Luke.

Rory smiles.

"They're having a movie night this weekend."

"Movies aren't very romantic, are they?" Rory thinks that Grandma sounds a bit more upset with this than she ought to. "I thought that you said that this guy is the one for your mother. Why is she trying to sabotage their relationship with movies? Oh, this is just like Lorelai!"

"Chill, Grandma," Rory says, reaching across the table with her free hand to touch her grandmother's arm. Grandma raises her brows at the instructions. "Next weekend, they're going to spend time at the Dragonfly."

Grandma relaxes and nods to herself, satisfied.

Quite uncharacteristically, Lorelai tonight arrives ten minutes before seven, giving Richard and his daughter plenty of time for an amble through small talk and awkwardness, et hoc genus omne. She takes her drink strong, he takes his even more so.

It's been this way, sans the timeliness this side of bizarre, since his granddaughter and Emily had departed for Europe. Already, Richard and Lorelai have been through two almost clumsy dinners, each ill at ease but neither willing to say so after his first perfunctory offer of a temporary cancellation until Emily and Rory returned. For a sharp moment, the words had hung in the air, and he was surprised to remember that, why, Emily _might_ not be returning after all.

Richard suspects that his daughter is keeping the Friday night dinners so as to look after him. He does not further request solitude on the night, but rather appreciates her effort and tries, in his own way, to take advantage of her companionship.

"And how is your mother?"

Richard doesn't know why he persists in inquiring after Emily each time he and Lorelai sit down for their lonely dinners. It isn't as if Emily and Lorelai are speaking to one another, though it isn't as if they are. The relationship between his wife and daughter is a complex one, and one that Richard has never fully cared to investigate. Emily will do something to irritate Lorelai, and Lorelai will do something to infuriate Emily. If Richard cared less for his neck, he might remark fondly to them each that they really are too much alike one another to enjoy each other's company for long periods of time.

He, however, enjoys his head firmly attached.

So he begins the dinner with a question after Emily, which he isn't certain that Lorelai can truthfully answer, but it isn't done in any way to attack his daughter.

"Ma's good, Dad," she replies, smoothing her napkin on her lap. "I talked to Rory this morning on my way to work. They were just finishing with lunch, then they were going to go take the subway back to their hotel."

Richard is shocked and upset.

"Taking filthy public transportation?" he exclaims. "And before their food has settled? They could catch the Ebola virus, for heaven's sake. Lorelai, I hope that you strongly advised them against such action!"

"Yeah, gee, Dad, I tried, but it didn't work. I managed to convince them to wait a half hour before heading home, so hopefully their food was snug and settled."

Emily would have never taken public transportation back to the hotel if she were in her right mind. This goes to Richard's personal conclusion that she was fraught with emotion and unable to admit it. He hopes that she doesn't make anymore rash decisions, but one can never tell with Emily Gilmore, nèe Montgomery. Trix had advised him against marrying Emily, citing what she called Emily's rare and vibrant temper (perhaps Trix had used words like erratic and uncouth, but it amounted to the same). Richard, however, would not give up one moment of disquiet in his married life for all the years left with a more subdued Emily Gilmore.

If he really wishes to look upon the matter, why, Richard _enjoys_ the way that he is wrapped around Emily's little finger. He has to admit, he is somewhat absent-minded, and his wife's take-charge attitude often saves him from social blunders. Richard really doesn't know what he would do without Emily. She's in charge of the tickler file, for heaven's sake! How is he supposed to attend all those functions without her?

"Thank you, Lorelai."

They fall into silence, though it isn't uncomfortable, eating the roast that had been prepared for them. Idly, he realizes that this is the longest that he has ever had the same maid employed for a single block of time.

Lorelai seems to be abnormally bright-eyed, almost as if it were a false awareness, and he decides to comment upon it.

"Dad? I'm sort of cranky tonight. I got up at a quarter to six and had to deal with what can only be described as a group comprised of Taylor clones for most of my morning as they inspected the Dragonfly. All this alertness? It's about twenty cups of coffee vying for dominance."

Though his outward appearance doesn't falter, Richard inwardly shudders. He has not lived with his daughter in almost eighteen years, but he does remember what an early rising does to her for the rest of the day.

"Well keep dinner short, then," he promises.

Lorelai smiles truly for the first time that night.

Before she leaves, Richard taps Lorelai on the arm. He's uncomfortable, upset, and his current situation with his wife saddens him to a level that he had not before comprehended. Perhaps his daughter sees it in his eyes, because she stands there for the moment it takes for Richard to gather his thoughts and speak.

"Emily and I are going to need to sign our own Camp David Accords to fix this thing, aren't we?"

He feels so powerless and ineffective, asking his daughter for her opinion on his marital troubles. The matter is that he values it, and he's lonely for a bit of Emily's vehemence and confidence, which can always be found in her daughter.

"Maybe not, Dad. Maybe everything will turn out okay."


	3. chapter three

**disclaimers in chapter one**

* * *

Sookie is just beginning on preparations for the sides for lunch when Lorelai staggers into the kitchen, face drawn and deep shadows under her eyes. Though it is nearly eleven, this is the first time this Saturday morning that she has seen Lorelai, as a problem with the lock in room eight and an exceptionally busy breakfast had made it impossible for the two to get a moment aside.

"Lorelai, you look _terrible_," Sookie exclaims. "Didn't you get any sleep last night?"

Lorelai stalks over to the chopping board and snatches a baby carrot.

"The cats kept me up all night," she sighs. "They sang their little tunes and did their dirty number until the wee small hours of the morning, by which time it was almost too late for me to catch some sleep. Luckily, bypassing a shower and wearing yesterday's hose, I managed to sleep in an extra half hour, giving me a grand total of ninety minutes of sleep."

Poor Lorelai! Sookie nods in sympathy as her friend tells her story. She has a infant in the house; she understands all too well how it is to have someone's high-pitched squeals keeping one up all night. She's surprised that Lorelai looks as well as she does -- but, then, Sookie amends, Lorelai has had the experience of an all-nighter with Rory, even if it was almost twenty years ago.

Lorelai's taken another carrot and is munching on it with hostility. Sookie thinks that she looks to be the most angry that anyone has ever been when eating something that she has prepared. This is disturbing, because when people are generally tasting something of her concoction, they are happy and pleased-looking and enjoying the food.

Granted, Lorelai is only eating peeled carrots, but Sookie has perfected a technique when peeling. She decides to change the subject.

"How did dinner go with your father?"

Lorelai groans.

"_Oh_! I'm sorry! We don't have to talk about it if you don't want. We'll talk about something else."

Of course, that means that she _really_ wants to talk about it, and she hopes that Lorelai picks up on that. Then again, even if Lorelai doesn't, she's likely to tell the entire story anyway, and probably use pieces of the lunch as handy puppets.

"If there could be a more discomforting way to begin dinner, my father would kill it, and this would reign as the most discomforting way to begin dinner!"

"That bad, huh?"

"Oh, God, Sookie, I was cranky and tired, and I arrived early, just hoping that we could perhaps get started with dinner quickly."

"Didn't happen?"

"We spent ten minutes making small talk. _Small talk!_ My father is sometimes so clueless that I am not quite sure how he remembered to marry my mother." As Lorelai gesticulates, Sookie clucks in compassion. "Dinner was marginally shorter than usual, and only because I warned my dad that I wasn't feeling well. Of course, to him, cutting dinner short means that there is no after dinner brandy and lecture."

Sookie hands Lorelai the cup of coffee that she has been preparing as a way to distract her from her salad and side preparations, then goes back to her cutting board.

"And to begin it all, as soon as we are seated, he asks about my mother! And this only made me feel ... made me feel ..."

"Impotent?" supplies Sookie helpfully.

"Like -- what? I need Levitra?"

"No, silly!" Sookie giggles. "Like you're unable to fix things between your mother and yourself. Useless in the relationship. _That_ sort of impotent."

Lorelai gapes at Sookie.

"If I hadn't've come in here in a down mood, that would have certainly lowered my hypothetically positive spirits."

Sookie squeals an apology.

"Sorry! Sorry, Lorelai. Okay, from now on, the conversation? It's going to be totally happy. It'll be _extremely_ chipper."

"Chipper," repeats Lorelai doubtfully.

"Chipper!"

Both pause for a moment, gathering good thoughts. Sookie thinks about telling Lorelai about Davy's latest accomplishment -- he did a little dance! and then repeated it, just as if he had remembered it! he is such a clever boy -- but excludes that thought because of the possibilities that it would remind Lorelai of when Rory was a baby. Even with things between Lorelai and Rory back to normal, Sookie doesn't want to invoke the nostalgia for an innocent and sweet Rory by pushing her own adorable and wholesome little one.

As she arranges some celery to her liking, Sookie makes plans to buy more DVD-Rs for the digital camcorder, as she and Jackson have used up their supply of them trying to coax Davy to do his dance a third time.

That reminds her ...

"So, the big night is tonight, huh?" Sookie asks while chopping up the celery. Lorelai by some way sees to facing the sink when she sputters and spits out her drink. "Oh, that is completely unhygienic;" and Sookie scurries over with a rag and disinfectant.

"That is _disgusting_," Michel adds from the doorway. "I would hope that you would not partake in your animal-like manners inside the kitchen! But that is too much for which to ask."

"Oh, hush, you," and Sookie brandishes her knife, still in her hand, at Michel.

"The big night?" Lorelai asks innocently. "No, no, no, that's next week."

Sookie turns and faces her with both brows raised and a grin on her face. She pushes the handkerchief on her head up slightly with her arm, and her view of Lorelai is obstructed for a moment by the draping sleeves of her shirt.

"Movie night, Lorelai. You couldn't go to Hartford to pick up the new slipcover for the back porch swing because you and Luke were going to stay in all night and have a movie marathon."

"Yes!" adds Michel. "I have to leave my precious children with a dog sitter to do it myself!"

"Oh, _right_."

Talk about unconvincing. Sookie smells something funny in the kitchen, and it isn't coming from anything that she and her perfect assistants have concocted.

"_Lorelai_, is there something that you would like to tell me?"

Lorelai manages to look a good deal like innocent without quite reaching it as she gazes as Sookie with her blue eyes large. However, Sookie isn't fooled for an instant, and mentally files away this trick as something to watch out for with Davy.

"Nothing, Sookie."

Michel scoffs. "She and Luke are finally going to make sweaty diner-man love."

"What?" Sookie rushes at Lorelai for a hug, momentarily forgetting the knife that she was holding. Lorelai manages to dodge her, and Sookie regains her senses enough to place carefully the knife on the chopping block. "Oh, Lorelai, that's great news!"

"How did _he_ know?" Lorelai asks in apparent stupor. She tosses a questioning glance at Sookie.

"Don't look at me!" Sookie throws up her hands. "Michel and I don't gossip about your love life!"

"Yes, I have much more important things to do."

"Well, Michel, how did you know that Luke and I hadn't ... uh ... you know ..."

"Made with the midnight tango? _Please_, Lorelai, you are insulting my intelligence. Your coffee intake has been stable throughout your entire relationship with Luke." Michel's watch beeps. "Now, if you will excuse me, I must call home. If my chows don't hear my voice on the answering machine, they will get lonely and make a protest on the rug."

He departs, and Sookie mutters darkly under her breath about the comeuppance of certain panjandrum individuals who insist on starting a sticky conversation thread, then leave it.

Lorelai rounds in on Sookie like the Wicked Witch of the East being flung from a tornado. Even though, as Sookie knows from her perusal of classic children's literature, the Wicked Witch of the East was never technically in the tornado; the house just fell on her.

"What was he talking about? My coffee? What does my coffee have to do with anything? _Do my coffee habits have an indirect relationship with my sex life?"_

Sookie doesn't know quite what to answer, so she tentatively answers the last: "Um. Yes?"

"Yes!" Lorelai leans against the wall by the door. "I drink more coffee when I'm having sex?"

Shaking her head, Sookie answers. "Oh, no."

"_No?_"

Sookie knows the answer to this question; this is easy. "You drink less."

"I drink less coffee? Okay, is that noticeably less? I can understand if I'm drinking more coffee, because, hello, cup in hand twenty-four hours instead of twenty-three, but less?"

"Noticeably!" Sookie agrees. "Extremely."

"Like how?"

"Yeah, well, instead of three cups an hour, you generally cut down to a cup every two hours. It's very obvious, Lorelai."

"Wow."

"Yeah. I've actually thought about it -- it was how I realized that you were sleeping Jason, before you actually telling me, you know! --and I think that you just don't need the coffee when you're having sex. It's _very_ Zen of you. Coffee's just there to tide you over, so to speak, until you find that _great _sex-for-life person."

"Coffee's my replacement sex?"

Sookie shakes her head energetically, hair falling out of its restraints and right in her eyes without so much as a how-d'ya-do.

"I never said that! I never said that it was your replacement sex!"

"You _indicated_ that it was my replacement sex. The only thing you could have done more to hint at it without actually speaking the words aloud was to make it a puzzle on Wheel of Fortune and have me solve it!"

Oops.

Her cuticles need to be taken care of, and the polish on her right index finger is chipped. Really, though, the pointing-finger on her dominant hand is an obviously overworked digit and always the first casualty in the war of the manicure versus the chef...

"Maybe I indicated, but I didn't come out and _say_ it."

Lorelai very carefully pour out her coffee, then rinses the cup, before placing it with the rest of the dirty dishes to be placed in the dish washer.

"I think the cats know."

Years of close companionship with Lorelai Gilmore have made Sookie a master at following a seemingly unrelated thread in a conversation to the original focus. She is unperturbed when Lorelai makes these mad dashes to the other side of the topic.

"Know what?"

"That we're not sleeping together. Luke and I."

Oh. See!

"Lorelai, the cats _do not know_!"

"Then why do they mock me with their kitty love all night long?"

"There's probably a female cat in heat whose mother never told her that it wasn't a good idea to sleep with a boy on the first date."

"My life is so strange. I'm not sleeping with Luke, even though plenty of opportunity has presented itself, and my cat is a tramp."

Sookie is tickled at Lorelai's language.

"I thought it wasn't your cat!"

"Sookie! A little priority here!" Lorelai admonishes. "We've been talking about my lack of sex with Luke for the past week, have we not? And you did not think to mention that the staff knew that I wasn't having sex because of my mad coffee drinking?"

Erm.

"I didn't think about it."

"So it's this unconscious thing that you have?"

"Lorelai, we've been working together for how long? Michel and I are very attuned to you. Just as you're very attuned to me ... and Michel."

Sookie's actually a little doubtful on that last one. With Michel, Sookie just has an annoyed and annoying meter. She curries her mood only slightly to his. It isn't at all how she behaves with Lorelai, or Jackson, or especially with Davy. When Davy is upset, Sookie tries to be as upbeat and as mommylovesyou as possible!

Lorelai nods.

"Yeah. Yeah, that sounds right."

There is a loud knock at the outside door. Sookie wipes her hands on her apron, then scurries on over to answer the door. Opening it reveals Kirk standing on the kitchen poor steps with a large basket and a cool glint to his eyes that Sookie knows he only ever gets when selling an idea for a job that he could perform.

"Ladies," Kirk says, jerking his head at each of them after a fashion. "I come to you today with a proposition for your kitchen."

"Then I'll be bowing out, Kirk," Lorelai says form the door. "This is Sookie's kitchen, she makes ... the business decisions."

Sookie swirls around to face Lorelai, glaring. She knows how hard it is for Sookie to say no to Kirk, especially when he's so polite to her! How dare she leave her! _Oh!_

"Well, then, Sookie," begins Kirk, turning his full and automaton-like attention upon her, "I would like to show you rather than tell you my latest idea. It is a doozie!"

Oh boy, a doozie.

Thumping his basket onto the table, Kirk starts unraveling strings and unsnapping latches on the side.

"Kirk!" Sookie squeaks, horrified eyes cast upon the dirty bundle he was in the process of unwrapping.

Once unearthed from its sooty cloth, the inside of the brown basket is to be seen. Shriveled yellow sticks no bigger than a pen, with wilting green tufts stuck to their tops, are scattered in the first layer. Just below that are gold-tinted white and sickly green-looking balls, four or five connected on a thin vine. Beneath that even, jutting out from the others, are the odd white-yellow and brown lumps.

"I've taken up a greenhouse with Mother in the side yard."

If Sookie thought that hearing Lorelai's plans for having sex with Luke were mildly disturbing (yet endearing), then Kirk's declaration was perturbing to the nth.

"No, no, no, no, no!"

It actually wasn't all that hard saying it after all.

* * *

**up next: chapter four.**


	4. chapter four

**disclaimers **in part one  
**thank you** for your reviews! i wondered if anybody was reading. :-D

* * *

Mrs. Kim sees Lorelai from the other side of the street and so crosses in order to intercept her.

"Lorelai."

Lorelai apparently had not noticed her previously, as she rather jumps and makes an odd noise. Very unsettling.

"Mrs. Kim, hi! How are you?"

"I am well, thank you," replies Mrs. Kim courteously. "I was just wanting to express my gratitude to you for your excellent name suggestions. When visiting Lane, I now am able to converse with her girl roommates Brianne and Sarah without having giant caterpillars crawling down my spine in response to my abject horror."

Nodding, Lorelai smiles. Mrs. Kim notices that she either has not brushed all of the tangles out of her hair or has gained some new ones in the course of the day. Almost without thinking, Mrs. Kim smoothes her own hair back, making certain that it is tucked firmly behind each ear.

"That great, Mrs. Kim. I'm that that I could be of help."

Keeping in step with Lorelai, she asks, "Where are you going?"

"Um, I'm just going to have some coffee."

"Ah, yes, coffee, good," Mrs. Kim says, nodding in approval. "I am glad that you do not choose to replay past mistakes by sleeping with Luke before you two are properly settled down, the guests have all departed, and the ink on your marriage certificate is dry. It shows good common sense."

"Ex...cuse me?"

Mrs. Kim nods curtly. "You. And Luke. I know. I find it refreshing. Too many young people are forgetting the old ways and jumping into bed. I thank you for the fine example that you are putting in place for both your daughter and my own."

"...glad to be of help."

Mrs. Kim turns to Lorelai and is about to respond when she encounters an impediment to her course. She backs up and finds that she has walked straight into Miss Patty.

Miss Patty smiles down at a kind of dazed and rather startled-looking Mrs. Kim.

"Why, hello, dear," Miss Patty says. "We must not have seen each other."

"Indeed."

"Well, I'll just be on my way then. Oh, dear, Lorelai, are you headed for Luke's? I'm on my way to the Shoppe myself, I have to talk to Taylor about the shooting stars in the Fourth of July festival. Walk with me?"

Lorelai was dressed nicely in blue slacks and a delightful little white blouse that said all sorts of things about her figure. Miss Patty admired her shoes (low heel, very in this summer for the business woman on the go) and noticed that her bag matched her slacks. Very tasteful of Lorelai!

"Sure thing, Miss Patty. Mrs. Kim, it was nice talking to you."

Mrs. Kim nods smartly once, turning on her heel as she does so, and walks away in a stately manner, while Miss Patty watches admiringly. As the self-appointed town's régiseur, Miss Patty is always watching how people move, especially when a festival is near, even if there is little to no chance of them participating.

"Now that's poise, dear." Miss Patty turns to Lorelai and smiles. "_You_ are looking a little thin, Lorelai. You must keep some meat on your bones, or Luke will take it into his head to find himself another lady."

"I don't think that there is much chance of that happening, Miss Patty. Luke seems to like me pretty well."

Lorelai and Miss Patty have made it to Doose's Market, and they stand in front of it, conversing. Miss Patty nods to some passersby as she replies to Lorelai.

"Oh, you never can tell with the silent type. They always are the most fickle of fellows."

Lorelai snorts. "Yeah, because Luke has been known to have erratic dress patterns. Some days, he wears his baseball cap rotated three point eight nine degrees deasil. Other days, he takes a walk on the wild side and wears it three point nine."

"I'm just trying to be helpful, Lorelai. You could do with a bit of flesh, because there is nothing so enticing on a woman as curves. Gives it that much more 'zay' to _sexy_, if you understand to what I'm referring You've got the basic layout, now all you need a little embellishment."

They amble their way across the street, and it takes that long for Lorelai to regain her ability to speak. Miss Patty always loves being one to cause her to be at a loss for words; shocking Lorelai is something that she excels at. There is no harm in anything that she says, and everyone knows it. If she just happens to speak her mind with a little more sex than others, well, then that was their problem! But she has no qualms about continuing in her own ways.

"Uh, wow. Thanks, Miss Patty."

"It's no problem, dearie!" she assures Lorelai. "Now, I know that you and Luke have yet to get that far into the relationship, but when you do, don't you think that he would appreciate a little more mama to his hot mama?"

"You know, I _will_ be thinking about that, Miss Patty. You can be certain that this conversation is going to be replayed several times in the following days. I'll be trying to figure out, you see, where I lost control and where you gained the upper hand. I'm thinking it was when I said that I'd walk with you." Lorelai looks up at Miss Patty with no ill feeling in her face. "You are an evil woman."

Miss Patty smiles, pleased.

"Come inside and buy an ice cream, if you can keep yourself out of the diner that long."

Lorelai hooks her arm through Miss Patty's own.

"Let's!"

From the counter, Luke sees Lorelai enter the Shoppe with Miss Patty. He considers pouring her coffee, but she perhaps will come back with a milkshake or other form of drink, and then will not need the coffee. Besides, if she's going to the Shoppe, she's obviously going to get _some_ form of a disgustingly unhealthy foodstuff, and he'd rather not give her another so close in succession.

It only takes minute for Lorelai to exit the Shoppe and head into the diner, ice cream cone in one hand, purse in another. She plops onto a stool at the counter and smiles.

"I've got a treat."

"I see that." Luke jerks his head. "It's dripping down the cone."

Lorelai licks the ice cream cone in such a way that Luke cannot help but be fascinated. She gives a filigree laugh and flicks a smile his way. He blushes, but doesn't let his gaze waver. She breaks eye-contact first, shifting a bit so that her purse is on her lap.

"Rory sent an e-mail," she says, dripping chocolate ice cream all over her white blouse. Masterfully opening her purse with her clean hand and pulling off not getting it filthy, she withdraws a piece of computer paper upon which a long letter has been printed. "You need a computer so that she can e-mail you personally."

He was wiping down the counter, but he makes a grab for the paper after drying his hands on a towel.

"We are not buying me a computer when you have one at your house that does anything needed for the both of us," he says, and Lorelai has already moved the paper out of his reach, so he stands there, arms akimbo, waiting for her to stop teasing him. "Besides which, have you been watching the news lately? Do you keep up with your current events? The government is watching every move that we make --"

"-- because the government thinks that an inn owner and a guy who runs a diner are terrorists --"

"-- and checking everything we do online. People walk down a street in Hartford and are on hundreds of surveillance cameras, cameras just waiting for some dweeb with a badge to spend hours pouring over the photo that they produce. And don't even get me started on the Patriot Act --"

"Okay."

"--which is just a way to make it legal for them to go into my apartment when I'm not there --"

"Are you ever out of this building?"

"-- _without_ my permission, mind you, and snoop around in my underwear drawer."

"I'm not even going to ask what the government wants with your boxers, Luke."

"People hide things in their underwear drawer. It's a known fact."

"Did you use first personal plural?"

"Excuse me?"

Lorelai's erratic conversational manner is still something that Luke is not fully prepared to meet. This strange jump that she has just made from the topic that they'd been discussing is not unusual, but it is confusing to him.

"We. As in, you and I. As in, you and I are not going to buy a computer."

"I don't know anything about computers, Lorelai. Of course I'd take you along."

Luke realizes too late that there is something strangely intimate about the way he says that, so matter-of-factly, because Lorelai looks as if she wants to do a million things as once, beginning and ending with throwing her arms around him and giving him biggest kiss of his life. Instead, she looks up at him from behind her hair and smiles in a teasing way.

"Awww, you said we," she drawls in a too-cutesy voice that almost annoys him but doesn't, and Luke can feel himself turning red. "You get the e-mail."

She produces the paper with a flourish, and he's got it in his hands and is scanning it before she's halfway finishes with her mock ceremony. From over the edge of the paper, he can see that she's pouting just a little bit in jest.

He's about thirty-five seconds into the first paragraph when he stops and has to peer closer at the paper. Finding things to be unchanged, he puts the paper down and gazes at Lorelai sternly.

"Why are there large portions of this letter blacked out with a sharpie?"

Lorelai looks highly affronted. "I'm her mommy."

Luke feels that he look as if he doesn't completely understand what she's talking about, with his eyebrows knit in that way. Lorelai takes the hint.

"There are certain things that you only tell your mother," she explains. "These are things that you would never tell anybody else, no matter how special they are to you. I'm sorry, Luke, but I'm her mommy, and you aren't, so that affords me certain privileges that you can't be given."

"So, basically, you're your own government censorship committee."

"You betcha."

"Well, as long as you're honest about it."

He goes back to the paper, smiling. From what Lorelai's left (which is, admittedly, still a great deal of the letter: Rory had obviously typed it with Luke in mind, especially in the parts where she talked about building architecture), it's clear that Rory is having a very good time indeed. He notices the small but frequent mentions of Mrs. Gilmore and figures that Rory is up to her own brand of carpentry: repairing the relationship between her mother and grandmother.

"She sounds like she's loving it," he comments, handing back the paper. Lorelai waves a hand in front of her, and Luke folds the paper up carefully and puts it in his apron pocket.

"Oh, she is. She's having a blast. She's doing all the things that I wouldn't let her do last summer."

"Museums?"

"And art galleries."

"Ruins."

"Hotels without communal bathrooms."

Luke snorts and puts a large mug in front of her, starting for the pot, but Lorelai shakes her head.

"None for me, thanks," she says. "I'll have water."

Luke spins around, a ballet dancer in a former life. A small amount of liquid from the pot he's holding splashes onto him, but he doesn't pay attention to it, still fixed on Lorelai's last words.

"_What_?"

Lorelai squirms uncomfortably in her seat, looking at her hands.

"I said," and she speaks deliberately, as though it's rather hard now that she's down to it, "that I'd have some water." Luke stares at her for a few moments longer, and Lorelai adds with a smile that's almost forced, "Please."

Luke looks her in the eye, trying to decide if she's playing a trick, but then walks to the water pitcher and the glasses.

"You," he tells her as he pours the water, "confound me."

* * *

**to be continued**


	5. chapter five

**disclaimer** in part one  
**a note** to the reviewer talking about Mrs. Kim -- I do think that Mama Kim has the brass to speak so candidly about the subject: she is without shame when she feels that she is in the right. She would appreciate what she saw as "moral" behavior from the otherwise "immoral" Lorelai and would commend it. She's kooky like that. :-P

_Ah ... the fic..._

* * *

All he was doing was browsing books at the local bookstore. Minding his own business, really. He was standing there, reading the dust jackets and trying to decide which ones to purchase, when he saw her out of the corner of his eye. He almost ignores it, but glances over to where it is that he thought that he saw her, and suddenly, there she is, with her head wrapped in a scarf and heavy watch on making her look like Jackie O, pursuing books in the children's section. He guiltily moves out of self improvement and decides to saunter over and say hi. 

"Lorelai," he begins, because that's the way to begin things, to say someone's name, to catch their attention.

Except this causes Lorelai to drop the book she was holding ("Are You My Mother?") and to jump.

"Oh, Jason, hi!" she says too brightly, smiling a stretch too widely. "You surprised me."

Jason tries his own semblance of a smile, but he's afraid that it comes out more as a grimace. He drops that and just reaches over to pick up the fallen book.

"I'll try not to do that next time," he says, and then he winces at how lame he sounds. Idiot! Idiot! "So, are you looking for some light summer reading for Rory?"

Lorelai laughs, and he can tell how she forces it a little in the beginning before it finds its rhythm (he can also tell that she's got some sort of hard candy in her mouth). Some perverse part of him is willing him to stay, to watch how uncomfortable and nervous he is able to make her.

"No, actually, Rory's in Europe with my mother."

"Wow, didn't see that coming." He's talking double entendres: he never expected that Lorelai would allow Rory to go on a trip to Massachusetts alone with Emily Gilmore, much less go to another continent, and he never thought that he would evict so much information out of her. He has a feeling that he surprised her into babbling.

"Yeah, well, she's nineteen. She's an adult."

Lorelai seems to be on the defensive here (case in point: she's just crunched down on whatever sort of sweet upon which she had been sucking), and this amuses Jason to no end. It appears that he has a sadistic side; it's a masochistic side as well, because seeing her here and knowing that she didn't choose him is killing him. He wonders if she's thought about what it would have been like if she had let their relationship have another chance.

He knows that he has. It's only been three weeks, which, in theory, should be enough time to get over your ex-girlfriend and talk to her in a book store, but he's just realized how tight his chest is and how much he cannot look at her face, at her eyes.

He turns to exit nearest exit, calling over his shoulder, "Good-bye, Lorelai."

To him she looks rather bewildered.

Luke arrives at the house before Lorelai does and spends a good five or so minutes eyeing the window panes and wondering how they had gotten passed him in previous ministrations to the house. When Lorelai does show up, he can barely see her eyes over the top of a large brown bag (he can, however, see a large expanse of her stomach, as she's got her arms raised far enough to pull up her tiny shirt). He puts his boxes of food down and rushes forward to gather the sack out of her arms.

"Geez, Lorelai, you could have told me that you were planning on keeping us here for a week. I would have brought more food."

"You mean that you didn't bring enough food to last two normal people for seven days?"

"Normal people, yes. Lorelai Gilmore, no."

He stumbles a bit as he makes it up the steps, and she puts a hand on his arm to steady him. He likes how she doesn't have to pull it away immediately and make some joke but can pull herself even closer and walk up the steps with him. Once on the porch, they pause for a moment, and he enjoys this closeness that they're having, where their breathing is synchronized and his heart pounds in his ears.

He wonders how long it will be before he ever stops feeling this way, this dizzying, scary way that makes it where sometimes he wonders if he breathes at all when she isn't there. Luke suspects that this feeling, this lightheadedness, is the reason that Lorelai keeps stumbling into things. He almost doesn't want it to end at all, but he's running out of cups at the diner.

She opens the door -- it wasn't even locked! Luke bites his tongue -- and motions him through. He puts the bag on the end table behind some sort of dying foliage and turns to the door to get the food that he left out on the porch. Too late! Lorelai's already located the food and has taken up the boxes in her arms and is headed toward the kitchen.

"Movies are in the bag," she says as she passes.

"I gathered."

After taking off his jacket, Luke wanders over to check out her selections, hesitant to see the B-movie fest that she's decided to inflict upon them both. It appears that the bag filled with several DVDs and VHS tapes, which would explain for the space that is being taken up. Lorelai is in the kitchen, but starts calling out the movies before he's even halfway through a cursory glance.

"Stargate, the movie, because that one guy is really hot and half-naked most of the time. Then I invested in a couple of DVDs of the show, because the question of which Daniel is the Ultimate Daniel will never be solved but always is a fun debate."

"Sounds good." It doesn't sound too terrible, actually, and Luke doesn't mind listening to Lorelai talk through a movie that he's not going to pay much attention to anyway. He walks into the kitchen, because there is no use going through the bag if Lorelai has its contents memorized.

"Star Wars IV, V, and VI, because those are the only ones without Jar Jar Binks. I hate him like Elton John hates complementary colors, and Rory and I have made a pact that if whichever one of us meets Jar Jar Binks first will choke him to death with our bare hands and then hang his carcass from the capital building. And Han Solo is a hottie."

"I agree with you there. Not about the Han thing -- about strangling and the stringing at the capital."

Lorelai stretches and stands and tiptoe and makes soft noises of exertion over by counter. Luke helps her reach the cups in the top of the cabinet, and though he suspects that she's faking her height, he doesn't mind. She takes the cups and places them on the table, then, out of the refrigerator, Lorelai pulls two bottles of Evian.

"Total Recall, because 'Ahnold ees soh cyoot' in that one. And it's all deep and psychological ... that, and did I mention how gorgeous Schwartzenegger is in this film?"

"I'm beginning to see a pattern in these movies."

Lorelai chooses to ignore his comment, instead making no small amount of noise at the table as she delves into the packages of food that he's brought with him.

"Mmmm, fries," she says. "Then, uh, some Johnny Depp movie, because when is a Johnny Depp movie not good?"

"It's not Edward Scissor-hands, is it? Because that is one of the most --"

"Don't worry! I don't think that these movies were even made in the same decade, okay?"

She's dished out food onto both of their plates, though Luke knows that he's going to probably lose more than half of his to an assault from Camp Lorelai. They take their plates into the living room, and Lorelai disappears behind a wilted-looking potted plant as she rummages through the bag.

"I thought that you said that the movies were action and science fiction?" Luke teased. "So far, all that I have seen is science fiction."

"You said no to the Matrix, Luke McFussy!" Lorelai snaps playfully at him as she pokes half of her head from behind a decrepit leaf. "And the Johnny Depp is action. Anyway, I got the first movies and thought that I'd go with a theme."

"Which movies did you get first?" Luke has a feeling that he's missing something here, but he's often as a comfortable level of disquiet when in her presence.

"The theme is space, thank you for asking Mr. Potted-Plant."

"Okay, so the theme is space. I sort of figured that out."

"_Why_ is the theme space? That's a good question, Mr. Potted-Plant! May I call you Fred? I really feel that you and I have been growing closer over the past week --"

"-- you've only had that plant for a week and have already killed it? --"

"-- so I feel that we're on a first name basis. You can call me Lorelai. Okay, so, Fred." She pauses, glancing sideways at Luke, then winking at the dying fichus. "The theme is space because the first movies that I got were ... and I have it on good authority from Jackson that these are the best of the series ... " Lorelai pulls something from the very bottom of the bag and makes trumpeting sounds. "Dun dunt dun duh! Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek: The Search for Spock!"

Luke's manliness gives a small shout of protest.

"Lorelai, have you ever seen the Wrath of Khan?" Lorelai shakes her head, hair flying about in her own personal tornado. He feels like that hair sometimes; a causality in her exuberance, yet still tethered firmly to her. "Well, it's just a very intense movie."

"Intensity is good. I like intensity."

He sighs.

"It's not exactly a nice sort of intensity, though, Lorelai. It's more of --"

"--_oh_, is this an intensity like the Matrix? Is that why you're not wanting to watch this? Luke, you already blackballed Keanu and Carrie, you are not getting rid of the Spork!"

"It's Spock," he tells her.

"I'm not talking about any one character."

It takes Luke a moment to get it, but he does, and it makes him grimace.

"_Lorelai_, there will be no Sporking near me!"

"Dirrty."

In an effort to distract her from her current train of thought -- Luke shudders, because Captain Kirk's face is being replaced by Stars Hollow's own Kirk's face -- he turns back to the original point of the conversation: convincing Lorelai to forgo the Star Trek.

"The Wrath of Khan just isn't a happy film, Lorelai. People have been known to ... cry."

Lorelai's face breaks into an expression of understanding.

"Oh, Luke," she says, "do you cry during this movie?"

No!

"No!"

Not since the first time that he saw the movie, anyway. That's something that he's not going to share with Lorelai, though, even if he was only a teenager, and even it had been because if he'd wanted to be Spock when he grew up.

"Fine, we'll not watch those, but we're going to watch the Johnny Depp instead."

This is fine with him, and they gather together their plates and food and head into the living room. He arranges himself on the couch to a comfortable position while Lorelai puts the DVD in the player. While her back is to him, Luke glories in the unhindered right to look at and admire Lorelai Gilmore from afar -- and close up -- and midway between afar and close up.

She slides into position next to him and presses her lips to his briefly for a kiss before grabbing the remote and turning on the player. He slips an arm around her and holds her to him, because she's made in such a way that she fits perfectly there, and there is no reason to ignore that.

As the beginning scenes start, Lorelai turns to face him, biting her lip.

"I saw Jason today."

Wow. He'd been expecting another kiss.

"What?"

"In Hartford," she says. "I was at the bookstore, looking at Dr. Seuss for Davy, because Sookie's got the complete set of Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, and the crossovers, but she doesn't have any "Green Eggs 'n' Ham" or "Cat in the Hat." So I was looking at "Are You My Mother" -- which, by the way, not Seuss, but Rory really liked it when she was three, and, God, I had to read that book about eighty billion times even after she memorized it -- and then he said, uh, hi. And it was Jason."

"He just walked up to you in a bookstore and said hi?"

Lorelai nods.

"Don't be mad."

"I'm not mad."

"I was very uncomfortable. He looked mean."

"...what?! He looked mean? Lorelai, the man is pathetic and slightly petty, and he doesn't know how to make business business and personal personal, but he is not mean!"

"Okay," she agrees. "He didn't look mean. He looked embarrassed and upset and a little angry with me."

This catches Luke's attention. 'Mean' and 'angry' are two different things entirely. She calls him mean all the time, but Lorelai has very rarely ever used the word angry when describing him. He realizes that he's tensed up; Lorelai has apparently realized it too, because she edges closer to him and makes him feel as if they are one body, many limbs.

"What did he say?"

"I dunno. I was too busy thinking about my hot boyfriend."

"Lorelai."

"He said ... something about Rory, and I said something back, and then he ran out of there. I think that maybe he could see what I was picturing in my head and got scared." Luke is still tense. Lorelai is back to biting her lip."I wanted to tell you, because it's nothing. I just thought that you'd like to know. Because," and Lorelai shifts, and Luke realizes that she's halfway on top of him, "I'd like to know if you ran into Nicole."

She leans down from her perch and kisses him, and all that Luke can think about is how soft her lips are and where he ought to put his hands. The baby-tee that he had been admiring earlier doesn't quite meet her jeans, and he touches the soft flesh between the hem and waistband. He moves a bit, getting a more comfortable position, and pulls Lorelai more fully onto his lap.

He's pretty sure that it was her knee that pressed into the remote.

"My God!" and Lorelai bolts up as the static noises assault her and Luke. She mutes the TV and then switches back to the movie, which they had forgotten. She pauses it. She starts chuckling, then laughing full out.

Luke attacks her, kissing her collarbone while she laughs, he on top of her this time. He makes his way up her throat, kiss by kiss, and feels her deep chuckles vibrating her throat. When he reaches her lips, he pauses.

"We could always finish our movie, Lorelai."

She stops laughing and pushes herself up on her elbows as if considering this idea. "I dunno, Luke. It's pretty close there. Maybe you could wear a little bit of eyeliner to break the tie."

"Lorelai."

"What?"

"Billy Crystal didn't call him a slightly gay pirate for nothing. I'm not wearing anything that my sister would ever wear, and that's final."

They've sat up, and they're back to that glued-to-each-other position where it's dizzying and gorgeous to be next to her. He holds her tightly to him and buries his nose in her hair.

"Putting aside my astonishment that you watch awards shows, I guess that means that you can fulfill that dream of yours about wearing a bra, huh?"

"This is where I put my foot down on this vein of conversation."

"I betcha never said anything like that to any of your other girls."

"Yes, because I let all those other girls walk all over me, and you I restrict."

"I knew it!"

Lorelai snuggles her head closer into his shoulder and sneaks an arm around his waist. He thinks nowt of it until the television screen flickers and a man -- the make-up wearing man, Luke notes -- jumps off of the mast of his ship and onto a pier. He decides not to say anything, and instead enjoys the feel of her breathing.

A thought crosses his mind, and he leans down, teasing, to voice it.

"You know, though ... not a one of them gave up coffee."

"Then it wasn't love."

He's a little surprised that she said it first. Not said, exactly, but heavily alluded to it. He doesn't know with what to reply for a few seconds, so he stares at her. Her eyes are crinkled up in a smile, and she doesn't look at all uncomfortable, even though he would have thought that Lorelai would run out of the door rather than be the one to make any relationship fixed. But maybe it is exactly what she said; Luke knows that for him it is.

"Yeah." He clears his throat. "It wasn't."

He's looking into her eyes, and he's pretty sure that he's about to actually say it. Lorelai does look more serious, less ... not less certain, but less cocky, that's for sure, and Luke's got this strange feeling that this is his life, this woman sitting right in front of him, waiting for a declaration of love. From which of them is she waiting for?

"Lorelai..."

She reaches about to pull him down to him when, suddenly, there is a tinkering of breaking glass, he's rather wet about the head and neck, and a shrill ringing noise starts. They disentangle themselves to find that Lorelai's broken a vase ("My mother will _kill_ me, I'm pretty sure that was an antique! Why did I have an antique in this house?"), the water has dripped all over Luke and her sofa, and her home phone is ringing.

"Turned off the cell, forgot about the home phone," Lorelai groans. "We'll let the machine get it -- c'mon, let's get you cleaned up..."

The answering machine clicks on as she's sponging off the back of his neck. He listens to her cheery message (it's sort of cheesy and completely like her, he thinks), and then the beep sounds for to signify the caller to begin speaking.

"Mom?" It's Rory, and her voice sounds a little stressed. "Mom, are you there? Your cell is off, and --"

Lorelai dives for the phone, still holding Luke by the collar.

"Rory!" She scrubs a little too enthusiastically on his hairline as she listens. "Aw, babe, I'm sorry. Look, calm down, maybe you can just talk to her." Luke detangles himself from Lorelai, making motions with his hands to indicate that he's just going to pick up and leave. He's not too certain that Lorelai will get it (he has to admit, she's never been one for clear hand signals, either giving or reading), but when he picks up his jacket, she raises a hand. "Babe, just a second, okay?"

Lorelai puts the phone to her chest and smiles.

"Hey," he says.

"Hey. Sorry 'bout the ... vase. And the remote. And having to take this call."

"I'm gonna go."

"Yeah. I'll see you tomorrow."

He doesn't find it odd that he can hear Rory's humming over the phone as he and Lorelai kiss good-bye, because it's just another Gilmore thing. 

* * *

****

**to be continued ...  
**(don't forget to feed the author!)


	6. chapter six

**disclaimer in chapter one**  
**note**: I didn't die, and, obviously, neither did the story. I just had the world's most complicated two months in the history of anything. Swear.

* * *

In the kitchen on Monday morning, Sookie knows that something is up the moment that Lorelai walks in the door. For one thing, Lorelai is smiling broadly; for another, Lorelai is holding a glass of orange juice. Sookie glances at the coffee maker and is shocked to see that it's more than half full.

"Oh my God!" she squeals. "You guys had sex!"

"Even better!"

As she minces the onion for the pumpkin soup, Sookie thinks hard on what could be better than Luke and Lorelai _finally_ having sex and getting rid of Lorelai's strange hang-up over the matter. She can't conceive of much that's better.

"You're ... getting married?" she offers hesitantly.

"Sook, I've been dating the guy for just over four weeks. I don't think that we're exactly sending out invitations yet."

This causes Sookie to pause mid-chop, as a rather disturbing idea has just entered her head. She cocks a brow at Lorelai and tries to figure out if her friend is really so insane as to be not-telling her that she'd said _it_.

"You guys said 'I love you' _before_ sex?"

"No," Lorelai says, "but there were **heavy implications**."

Heavy implications of 'I love you!' This is wonderful news! Sookie puts down her knife, wipes her hands on her apron, and claps them together several times. To top off her joyous mood, she does a little dance right there in the middle of the pumpkin soup preparations.

"And you didn't jump each other right there?"

"I broke a lamp that my mother gave me, and then Rory called. It didn't seem appropriate."

"Lorelai, this is _big_. I didn't think that Luke would ever, you know, insinuate that he was in love with _anybody_, even in post-coital glow."

"Isn't our whole situation here based on the fact that there's never been any coitus?"

Sookie laughs. Yes, _that_ is true. She's got a theory that this is the final hurdle in Lorelai's line of stumbling blocks to sex. Maybe after this, there _will_ be the post-coital glow. Heck, with how much pre-coital glowing going on, Sookie bets that Luke will hire someone to write it in the sky after it's all said and done! Oh, Sookie loves true romance stories!

"You've broken the barrier, Lorelai! This is _gorgeous_! How did he say it?"

"He said, 'Yeah, it wasn't.'"

Sookie waits. And waits (and waits) .

"That was it?" she asks.

"What do you mean?"

"How did it go, exactly?"

"Sookie, you're scaring me," Lorelai says. "Oh, God, let's see. He told me that none of his girlfriends had given up coffee for him --"

"--you gave up coffee?"

Sookie had noticed it! With the orange juice! She had known something was up with _that_. Lorelai and fruit just do not mix; probably the closest thing that she gets to her daily serving of fruit begins with the strawberry pop tarts that she'll eat if she's ran out of brown sugar covered ones.

"He doesn't know that I gave up coffee because I didn't want the entire town to know that we weren't having sex. He pretty much is running under the assumption that I gave up coffee because I am a new and more healthful Lorelai Gilmore. And I didn't even give up coffee, just am drinking a _lot_ less and eating coffee flavored hard candies all day, which do _not_ do the trick. But, yes, I have cut down drastically on coffee."

"Wow."

"Rory received a phone call at three in the morning my time last night where I expounded on the virtues of caffeine for about an hour before she had to go have brunch with an earl or duchess or something."

"Okay, go on. Nobody gave up coffee for him, check."

"Then _I_ said, 'Well, it wasn't love.' And then he agreed. And we started making out, but then, well, the vase and the phone, and he left, but there was a good kiss before the departure, so I'm not thinking it was an annoyed leaving, more like a 'Lorelai's got a freaking-out daughter on the other end of the phone, I'm going to let her deal with it' kind of leaving."

"So ya gave it to him _first_," Sookie clarifies.

Lorelai's eyes get big. "Is that a bad thing?"

"No! No, no, no. I don't know!" Sookie wrings her hands together. "It's Luke! Maybe, maybe he wasn't ready and was dodging. Did he _say_ the word love? At all?"

"Sookie!"

"I'm just saying, Lorelai, that the closest that he's ever really come to it is when he talks about his dad."

"Thank you, Sookie, for making me feel _so_ much more better about springing that on him. I am a terrible, pushy girlfriend. Boy, this is a piecemeal way to destroy a relationship."

Sookie feels that she must repair the damage that she has causes.

"He loves you, Lorelai," she says. "The entire _town_ knows that. He's been in love with you for how long? Everybody's seen it. I just didn't expect him to _say _it so soon, that's all."

"Oh, God."

Oh, no! Sookie searches for something to say to mend what she's done _now_, however she's done it. She lights upon something that she thinks will work.

"Well, do you?"

"Do I what?"

"Love him? Love Luke?"

Lorelai glances up sharply, looking Sookie square in the eye as if she were able to find the answer to the question with such intense staring. For a moment, she doesn't answer, and Sookie is afraid of the answer and is sorry that she ever even thought of asking it. Forcing Lorelai to look at something too closely so that she sees the truth that is obvious to everyone else is sometimes counter-productive, as Lorelai will oftentimes ignore the truth glaring out at her. It's how Lorelai ignored her obvious attraction to Luke all those years, Sookie thinks.

"Yeah." From the soft smile playing on Lorelai's lips, Sookie knows that she's fixed the problem, because, beyond any doubt, Lorelai loves Luke. "I think that I'm gonna see Luke tonight, talk about it. But not talk about it, you know? Be very circumspect. That way, nobody gets scared off, _including me_."

Sookie thinks that that last piece that Lorelai added is sage indeed, especially considering that most of the acts of coitus interuptus were of her causing.

The diner is hectic at the moment. There's a large group of middle schoolers eating dinner at the moment, stopping in the town on their way toward Hartford's overwhelming and cheap motel rooms. Maybe fifteen total, coming from two vans, the kids are at the age where food looks better shoved up a nose or slathered in ketchup. Kirk has moved three times, and Taylor's called five to complain about the noise. Luke can't wait until dinner is over and they head over to the Shoppe for desert.

The phone rings (again!).

"Taylor!" he barks into the receiver, "I'm telling you for the last time, if I cannot duct tape these children to their seats, then I cannot keep their noise level down!"

"Sounds like I'm missing something."

"Lorelai!" Luke turned his back to the diner, pointedly ignore Kirk's obvious ketchup-bottle-is-half-empty look. "I haven't seen you in for dinner, though that's not unlikely, as there are about dozen plus kids running around and throwing food in here right now."

"I went home. I saw the commotion from across the street and decided that I'd rather find sustenance on pop tarts and cold fries than try to have a complete meal in that place. Why didn't you recommend Al's Pancake World to them?"

"Al's had already recommended me."

He doesn't mention that he'd spent a good two minutes trying to tell them all the good things that he could think of about eating at Al's opposed to eating at the diner. His top reason was that it was interesting cuisine, but, unfortunately, twelve seems to be the age where kids will only eat things that they are familiar with, and cheeseburgers and fries top that list, succeeded only by pizza, which, sadly, is not to be served at Al's until Friday.

"Devious."

"How are you?"

"Mmm," she says, and he closes his eyes briefly. "I'm good. I actually made myself a ham sandwich with some questionable looking mustard. Is mustard supposed be sort of brown?"

"It was dried out."

"I _knew_ it was a spread like mayonnaise and not a leaf like cheese!" She lets a long sigh out on the other end of the phone. "If Rory were here, I would have been informed of that before I sliced off two sheets of mustard for my sandwich."

"You're so certain Rory would know?"

"Hey, mister, she did work in the food industry this year!"

"She swiped IDs at the student cafeteria," Luke replies, wondering if he should offer Rory a job at the diner when she comes back from Europe with Emily. It isn't like it's terribly hard work, and Lane already works there, so Rory would have her best friend with her to complain about diner smells and grease burns from carrying hot and oily foods.

"Faculty ate there too occasionally."

"I stand corrected."

"You can take it back, you know," Lorelai states without preamble.

"Take it back?"

As usual, Luke has no idea what in the world Lorelai is talking about, so he employs his general mode of operation: he repeats everything that Lorelai says until she expands enough that he's able to grasp some fragment of the conversation and participate.

"Saturday night."

"I can take back Saturday night?"

He's repeating her not because he doesn't understand what she's talking about, but because he hopes that he doesn't.

"It was completely inappropriate, and I sort of sprung it on ya, like a tiger, and it was totally me being me, and you can take it back if you want. I mean, nothing was really said, but there were _implications_, and you can take back the implications."

"I don't want to take them back. The implications, I mean."

"Really?" And Luke hears her voice, dually hopeful and apprehensive. "Cuz, uh, neither do I. I meant everything that I implied."

"Me too, Lorelai."

"That's good, it's good that we're on the same path."

He can hear something going on in the background; the sound is familiar, but he can't quite place it.

"Where are you?"

"I'm taking a bubble bath."

Visions of her current situation dance through his head, and he gulps audibly. He's tried to stay away from picturing Lorelai in any sort of comprising situation over the years. Primarily out of self-delusion (for example, Luke has never yet found himself wondering what sort of underwear Mrs. Kim is wearing), Luke has kept his imagination at bay. But now ...

Doesn't he have a sort of guest pass at fantasy island? Should he feel so guilty thinking about how the bubbles must be falling off of Lorelai's shoulder and dripping down her back? Is there anything wrong with wondering if his girlfriend is using apple scented bath soap?

Well, _yes_, when he's on the phone with her. That, and he's still a little uncomfortable with the entire thing, seeing as how whenever he thinks that he and Lorelai are about to go to the next level, she ends up breaking something. At least now he's got Gwyneth Paltrow's baby name choice on his brain, which successfully takes his mind away from subjects less safe while standing in his dinner in the middle of the day.

He hears Lorelai's knowing laugh on the other end of the line, and he hurriedly covers up his silence with a comment about how civilization is falling because people are naming their children after fruits and cars. He's not sure if she buys it, his sudden departure from 'Hey, how ya doin',' to 'Lexus and Disney are the new Caitlin,' when she knows very well that he hates the name Caitlin in all forms and would be glad to see it gone, even if it were replaced by something as stupid as Dell.

"Like Gigi," Lorelai offers.

"Gigi?"

"Chris and Sherry's daughter," Lorelai says, then unnecessarily adds, "Rory's sister. Her name is Georgiana or Georgina or Georganne or something equally long and stupid, and they call her Gigi. It's such a copy on Rory's name that it makes me want to spit. Plus, it's _way_ too cutesy."

"And there's nothing at all cutesy in the name Rory."

"Hey, I'll have you know that Rory is a _boy_'s name, thank you. There is nothing cutesy about sharing the name with the little boy who has a crush on you. It's more disturbing and sad."

Luke nods to himself when he recalls the little boy in question. It had been sort of fun, watching Rory deal with her primary school-aged admirer. It had been even more amusing to watch Lorelai deal with Rory's first follower, or, as she had termed the boy, Rory's first stalker. Luke grimaces at that thought that has just crossed his mind: Jess was Rory's last.

"Yes, but he moved after the Christmas pageant where he kissed Rory on stage. Didn't his father transfer to the West Coast?"

"Yeah. I think he wanted to go some place where the entire town hadn't seen his son get beat up by the little girl that he had just kissed." Lorelai chuckles on her end while Luke snorts at the mental image. "God, it's nice to share those memories with you. That's why you're so good for me, Luke. Because you always _were_ there."

What does he say to Lorelai after that statement? Of course he was always there; he doesn't think for an instant that he would have fain been any other place than with them: watching Rory grow up from a precocious tot to a gangly preteen to a down-to-earth teenager to an accomplished young woman; watching Lorelai raise Rory by herself and work her way up in the staff of a successful business to owning her own inn. He cannot think of a day since he has known Lorelai where she and her daughter have not crossed his mind at least once; little things reminds him of them, like buying glue and remembering Rory's adamant boycott of glue after that horse died (that, he recalls, was Lorelai's fault, her way of assuring Rory that it would still be a productive member of society).

"I wouldn't have missed it, Lorelai."

* * *

**to be continued ... review, please?**


	7. chapter seven

**disclaimer in chapter one  
author's note**: Ah -- I quite remember how much I disliked writing this chapter. Richard is so dry! :-D As always, _don't_ forget to review. And -- somebody want to buy a younger sister? I've got one for sale.

* * *

Rather than have his secretary do the work for him, on Thursday afternoon, Richard looks up and dials Lorelai's number himself, a fact of which he is quite proud. She answers on the third ring. 

"Hello?"

"Lorelai, this is your father speaking." Always he has started phone conversations this way with Lorelai. Richard finds comfort in routine, and it is also a sensible way of making certain that his daughter knows with whom she is conversing. "Take whatever it is you have inside your mouth out before you answer the phone, please."

"Hey, Dad." Lorelai sounds puzzled, as well she might be. Richard rarely makes use of telephonic means of communication with her; he prefers instead to discuss matters over the Friday night dinner or allow Emily to handle all calls. However, Emily is not here, and Richard's is a timely subject upon which to confer.

"I'm calling about dinner on Friday night," he says without introduction. Go straight to the topic for which you were calling, his mother always said! "I was wondering if you wouldn't mind if I changed plans on you. Just slightly, mind you."

"You want to cancel dinner?" she asks. "Just this Friday, though, right?"

"Actually, no, I do not want to cancel dinner."

"Oh."

He thinks that perhaps Lorelai sounds _disappointed_ about that. He hmphs into the receiver. For him, temporarily at least, in the bickering between himself and Lorelai he must render himself hors de combat; out of the fight as a penalty of his gross mishandling of the Jason situation, picaroon though that boy turned out to be.

"I'm merely wondering if you would mind terribly if I had a couple of old friends join us. Merle and Elise Jennings from Austria. They're visiting the States for the first time since you were a child, if you recall them."

"The only thing that the name Merle brings to mind is a small, smelly lapdog."

"Ah, yes," Richard reminisces, "Merle and that unfortunate toupee of his. But that's good: you do remember them."

"Listen, Dad, if you're really sure that you want me there, I'll be there."

"It sounds, Lorelai, as if you're trying to get out of dinner."

On her end of the line, she pauses.

"I'm seeing this man," she says, and nothing good has ever come out of any conversation that Lorelai begins those words with. Richard bites his tongue and waits for his daughter to continue, repeating to himself over and again as his mantra the words _out of the fight_. "I made plans with him for later on Friday night."

"And you think that it would be better and more easy for yourself if you were to skip Friday night dinner altogether and go out with this -- who did you say it was?"

"Luke, Dad," Lorelai sighs into the phone. "It's Luke."

"Luke?"

"Yeah, Dad, Luke. You've met him before. He owns the diner?"

Ah, _that_ Luke. Yes, Richard remembers him, and he's only halfway surprised that Lorelai is seeing the man. In fact, Richard is more surprised that his daughter has willingly given up the information to him.

"Well," he says, "wait until your mother finds out."

This is not a warning or an ominous statement, merely a filler for the conversation. When his daughter doesn't speak for several moments, he thinks that she has misunderstood his statement, and so waits patiently for her to speak so that he can explain himself.

"Um," she says. "She already knows. See, Rory knows, and she and Mom ... you, are in Europe together. In fact, I think it was good for Rory, having someone to talk to about my dating Luke."

This piques Richard's interest.

"Has Rory ever needed to speak to anybody about the men that you were dating before, Lorelai?"

There was the teacher, but Richard has a feeling that this is a different for of yea or nay vote that Lorelai is seeking from Rory. Lorelai clears her throat, causing Richard to move the earpiece way from his head for a few moments while the static died down.

"No, but this is different, Dad."

"Different how?"

"This is Luke. Luke that has always been there, you know? And now suddenly, he's not just there, he's _dating Mom_. And that has to be rough on Rory."

"That you're dating Luke."

"That I'm dating the closet thing that she had a positive male role model in her entire childhood?" Lorelai asks, a bit sarcastically, Richard thinks. "Yeah."

There is a pause from both parties as he thinks about what Lorelai has just said. It is true that he was not there for much of Rory's childhood, a fact that he regrets beyond many other things in his life. An even greater tragedy is the fact that _Christopher_ was not there, was not a stable part of the life of his own flesh and blood. Part of this, he knows, has to do with Lorelai's insistence on living on her own, with her damn independent streak. However, how difficult would it have been for Christopher to be there more often for Christmases and birthdays?

Had Christopher been there? Heaven knows, Richard himself was not there, so he could not verify the whereabouts of Christopher at those times. However, from the past few years spent in the company of his daughter and granddaughter, and from the stories that he has been told, Richard garners the idea that this Luke man was probably there, probably a big part of their celebration.

Why? There is only one clear, solid relationship that Richard can see between Luke and his daughter. He ran the diner; Lorelai liked food. But why would Rory have so many stories of him, if he were merely there for the food. Richard recalls that Luke has very little family -- at least, until recently, for, wasn't his granddaughter dating Luke's nephew? Did Lorelai choose him as her friend because he was as alone as she? Or was it merely a relationship built up out of the convenience of her eating habits?

"I remember when you were a subdebutante," Richard says, breaking the silence.

"Technically, Dad, I still _am_ a subdebutante."

"Well, then, that's certainly one in your favor. There is a dearth of subdebutantes over the age of thirty."

"Did you just make a joke about my age?"

"Bring Luke along."

"Excuse me?"

"Bring Luke to the Friday night dinner with you," Richard repeats. "I would like to meet him, and I'm certain that he would appreciate a night away from the diner to a place where he is catered. Think of it this way, Lorelai. A Gilmore will be feeding _him_ instead of the other way around."

"Dad, I don't know if Luke would want to come."

"Lorelai, this is final!" exclaims Richard. "I want to meet his man who has to win the approval of my granddaughter in order to continue his relationship with my daughter. He sounds like a special man indeed."

And one, Richard thinks to himself, that she has obviously not been dating for four or five months; it has only been a month and a half since Lorelai and Jason ended their liaison.

"Dad, you're beginning to scare me," Lorelai says, her voice somewhat lighter. "You're starting to sound a lot like Mom."

He hates how morbid his company gets when his wife is mentioned; he has only just recently realized how he darkens a conversation with his silence.

"I miss your mother terribly, Lorelai," he says. "I would do anything to bring her back. If only she had not rushed off to Europe with Rory. Another week would have had me on my knees begging to bring her back to the house, I am man enough to admit."

"You two were at each other's throats." Lorelai's voice is gloomy. "Maybe you just needed this time apart. Rory says she's very interested in Luke and me, like we're her vicarious love life. I think she misses you too."

"I wish that she would come back. However, I have no knowledge of her itinerary beyond what you have given me, which you'd told me is only given to you on a week's prior notice. If Emily were in her right mind, she would not leave the details of her trip to the last minute!"

"It's her way of working off steam."

"It should not be a unilateral decision."

"Sometimes it seems like Mom's her own junta."

"In our family bloc, I am currently the mugwump here, Lorelai, and I refuse to allow your mother to leave me."

"Dad, I created the kangaroo court. I elect mugwumps."

"Well, then elect me, damnit."

Lorelai exhales loudly.

"We'll be mugwumps together."

"Thank you."

"Listen, Dad, I've gotta go, but Luke and I will be there tomorrow night, okay?"

"Good-bye, Lorelai."

"Dad? I love you."

He does not take time to reflect on the number of times that Lorelai has said those three words to him without prompting.

"I love you too."

The disconnection rings in his ears for several minutes, and he stares at the computer screen before him, lost in thought.

"Sir?" Richard looks up from his reverie to see his secretary Linda in the doorway. "Sir, Ms. Gilmore is on the line."

"Lorelai?" He is surprised. "I just got off the phone with Lorelai."

"No, sir, the other Ms. Gilmore," Linda replies. "Your wife, sir."

Luke knows that he looks ludicrous in the linen shirt that Lorelai lobbed off on him to wear. He wasn't even aware that he'd owned it, but, apparently, she had bought it for him when she had done her shopping that time once before. When she had produced it, he had shaken his head at the considerable daring she had, charging such an expensive shirt to his credit card.

"I feel as if I should be at a Ricky Martin concert discussing the tautness of the leather across his bottom."

"You know, if we run directly before anyone sees us, we may be able to make it to one," Lorelai says, straightening his collar.

"Will you knock it off?"

Her father chooses that moment to open the door.

"Lorelai!" he exclaims, beaming.

"Dad. You answered the door. Yourself."

"Yes, well, the maid was busy cleaning up a vase that I've just broken. I really hope that it isn't a priceless family heirloom, but it's so hard to tell and remember. Emily keeps rotating things out of the attic and basement."

"Ah," Lorelai says, nodding at Luke, "I've been there, and it is like walking through a museum, only everything is worth more and dusted more often."

"Yes, and sometimes they're heirlooms, and sometimes they're only five thousand dollar pieces of glass that she picked up last month at the shops. Not, mind you, that I care to break five thousand dollars in one fell swoop. It's just better if it isn't an heirloom."

Luke touches his collar.

"So, you going to invite us in the house, or are we having dinner with Merle, Elise, and Spot the Toupee out here tonight?"

"Oh, yes, of course, Lorelai! Where are my manners! Come in, come in, come in!"

Rather absentmindedly, Mr. Gilmore steps aside and gestures Luke and Lorelai in. She gives Luke a smile before entering, whispering so low that he almost doesn't hear it, "Take your drink strong."

The house is amazing. Luke casts a look at Lorelai and tries to figure out _why_ she left all this behind. He knows that Lorelai's family is well-off -- he _has_ met the Gilmores on more than one occasion -- but he has always rather assumed that their well-dressed-ness, their very cool and collective social graces, were a sort of act that they placed on whatever small wealth that they had amassed.

Apparently, it weren't no small wealth!

He silently thanks Lorelai for making him wear the stupid shirt and tie.

"Ah, yes, Lorelai, before I forget," Mr. Gilmore begins, as soon as the three of them enter a nicely and expensively furnished sitting room, "Merle and Elise will not be joining us this evening. Their flight from Kansas is delayed, and they will be arriving late tomorrow morning. I've arranged to have lunch with them."

"But I had double entendres to go with Merle's bad hair piece!" protests Lorelai. "Can we phone them and ask that they hold dinner conversation with us? I want to at least try out the material that I spent all of yesterday evening coming up with."

Luke can tell that Lorelai is teasing. Apparently, though, Mr. Gilmore can not.

"Honestly, Lorelai, if you really have nothing better to do with your time than come up with ways to poke fun at an old man's regrettable fashion choices, then your life must be dull and empty indeed."

"Not so empty since the invention of Punk'd, where Ashton Kutcher makes use of prison-lingo in a new and inventive way, changing it from bunk buddy gone bad to someone who has had a prank pulled on them. That is quality television."

"Punk'd, Lorelai?"

"A documentary series, Dad."

The way that Lorelai runs circles around her father makes Luke want to laugh out loud. That -- and kiss her for getting him less nervous about being in the house of her parents. Without being too obvious, Luke glances around her childhood home and tries to envision a young Lorelai living here. The closest he comes too picturing her brings an uncomfortable question as to whether this is the couch that Rory was conceived upon.

"I will remind Miriam to TiVo it for me," Mr. Gilmore replies steadily. "Thank you for the recommendation."

Luke isn't so sure anymore that Mr. Gilmore didn't get that Lorelai was teasing.

Mr. Gilmore turns to Luke.

"Lorelai has yet to introduce us."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Luke says, standing up, extending his hand. "I'm Luke Danes, Mr. Gilmore."

"I know." His voice is ominous, and Luke tries to remember that he's dating this man's only daughter. Hell, he remembers how protective of Rory he'd felt when she was going out with Jess, and Jess was his _nephew_. Though, on the other hand, he had probably had a lot more reason to be mistrustful of Jess than Mr. Gilmore had to be of him.

Mr. Gilmore looks as if he has something more to say, but a young woman in a maid's uniform (yes, Luke does a double take, it is a _maid's uniform_) steps out into the sitting room and announces dinner.

"We didn't get anything to drink!" Lorelai says, sounding panicky. "Dad, you pour, I'll drink, quick as you please."

"Lorelai, please," Mr. Gilmore admonishes, sounding exasperated, as he herds Luke and Lorelai into the dinning room. Luke realizes that Lorelai's father has probably mastered that skill as a necessity in his business; urging clients from one area to another so as to keep them busy, make them feel the energy in the company.. An energetic company is a lively one, and a lively company is trusted more and subsequently has more business put into it.

After seating Lorelai, Luke sits down and counts to ten. He knows that the evening has so far gone well. Lorelai has chattered enough to keep Mr. Gilmore's attention off of Luke for two people, and he's not done anything to break something -- though he suspects that Mr. Gilmore wouldn't be terribly upset. Luke is rather glad that Mrs. Gilmore isn't here for this dinner, as she has always seemed to him to be a rather intimidating woman. He does want to make a good impression on Lorelai's parents: he cares not particularly if they like him, but he wishes for them to accept him as Lorelai's beau.

He can't believe that he just thought the word beau, but it came to him as a better choice than suitor and less high school than boyfriend.

"So, Luke," Mr. Gilmore begins abruptly after their salads are served.

"Sir."

"I hear that you run your own business."

"Yes, sir," Luke allows. "I run a diner."

"My daughter frequents your establishment not sporadically, I assume."

Luke casts a glance at Lorelai to try to discern as to whether her father was joking with the way that he had phrased the question. She doesn't look at all upset, surprised, or even amused, so he's going to assume that Mr. Gilmore is in complete sincerity with his syntax.

"Yes, sir. She and Rory both eat there almost every day."

"Breakfast, dinner, and late night snacks!" Lorelai adds. "This guy makes a mean burger. Sometimes with little ketchup happy faces."

"Ketchup happy faces?"

Luke turns red. Aw, geeze.

"There was a ... thing. And ... someone ... was sad. Thought it would make her happy." Lorelai squeezes his hand under the table and gives him an encouraging smile. "It sort of cheered her up, I guess."

"That's good," Mr. Gilmore says.

It's quiet for a moment. Luke stares at his salad, wondering if he ought to put grape tomatoes in the ones at the diner. Would anybody like them? He's pretty certain that Taylor would be pleased with their introduction, and Kirk would probably give them a shot, but he's got to cater to the Stars Hollow customer who just wants a salad with their lunch.

"Remember when I was twelve and obsessed with Eskimos?"

Luke snaps his head up so as to follow the conversation.

"Remember?" Mr. Gilmore chuckles. "You had at least three piblokto fits, each of them an animal that you wanted your mother and me to buy you. Once a cobra, once a tarantula, and, if I'm not mistaken, once a miniature horse. That was the most amusing."

"Miniature horse?" asks Luke.

"That year's and last year's tap shoes," Lorelai explains. She adds, "Don't even _mention_ that again. I was terrible at tap."

"And you wanted to move to ... damn, to where was it that you wanted to move?"

"Caledon, Dad. I wanted to move to Caledon."

"Which, correct me if I'm wrong, is somewhere near Toronto," Luke says, bemused.

"Canada had Eskimos. I wasn't picky."

"So, young man," and the conversation is back to Luke from Mr. Gilmore again as the main course is served, "It seems to me that we have met several times before."

"Yes, sir."

"You were at Rory's graduation."

"I was very proud of your granddaughter, Mr. Gilmore." A pause. "And the grounds were magnificent."

"Yes," Mr. Gilmore chortles. "They most certainly were. Were you not also at Rory's birthday party several years ago?"

"Oh, I just delivered a bag of ice. Lorelai had run out."

"You happened to meet my wife."

Lorelai drinks her cherry cola like it's Juliet's potion and so will render her unconscious for the duration of the evening. Luke kicks her under the table as a warning for her to behave.

"Yes, sir. She's a fine woman."

Mr. Gilmore nods in agreement.

"That she is, young man. That she is." He wipes his mouth with finesse. "Now, If I were Emily, I would ask you questions such as what you were doing with my daughter, what your intentions were, and your political affiliations concerning the upcoming election. However," and Mr. Gilmore chances Luke with a smile, and Luke thinks that maybe he's going to have an okay relationship with him, "I am not Emily."

"It'd be really funny if you pretended that you were Emily, Dad, because her dresses would look exceptional on you."

As per usual, Mr. Gilmore doesn't reply to Lorelai's comments.

"I will say this: I hold no qualms about a long incarceration in a federal penitentiary."

There is stunned silence for a few moments.

"...did you just make a _prison joke, _Father?" Lorelai demands.

Mr. Gilmore cracks a smile.

"I've always wanted to use that line; I've never had the chance."

"Wow," Luke says. "Oh, wow."

"Yeah, that just about sums it up for me too. Dad, you are a wild man when Mom's not here to rein you in."

Mr. Gilmore manages to look miserable and cheerless in an affable way. It's sort of joke within itself, this misery, because it doesn't seem so extremely real. Luke gets the feeling that Mr. Gilmore is starting to become more accustomed to Mrs. Gilmore's absence; not accepting, but accustomed.

"That is why she is imperative to my existence, Lorelai," he says, his tone light. "She stops me from becoming a rogue."

Luke is surprised to find that dessert is on his plate. He's a bit disconcerted -- what did he eat? he hopes it was good, because he's got not memory of how it tasted -- but he picks up his spoon and dips into the plain vanilla ice cream.

From next to him, Lorelai whispers, "I called Miriam and told her that you were a freak, and I explained some of the foods that you would probably like." She grins at Luke.

"Lorelai," interjects Mr. Gilmore, interrupting the look of amusement halfway across Luke's face, "before we finish our dinner, and you two depart, I have some significant news that you may be interested in."

"Yes, Dad?"

"After ending my conversation with you on the telephone, I received a call from your mother in the Netherlands."

Luke glances at Lorelai; from what he knows of the situation, Emily Gilmore isn't speaking directly to her daughter, much less her husband from whom she is separated. Lorelai seems unperturbed by this news, though, and takes a mouthful of chocolate ice cream.

"Oh, the Netherlands," says she airily. "Holland. Home of the Dutch."

"Well, Lorelai, don't you wish to know why your mother was calling?"

"Sure I do, Dad."

Mr. Gilmore visibly preens in readiness. "She was calling to inform me that she and Rory have decided to return. They will arrive on Tuesday."

"Unless, of course, their flight is delayed, in which case, they will be arriving on Wednesday,"

"_Lorelai_," admonishes Luke in a low voice.

"Emily said that they were beginning to miss home terribly much," Mr. Gilmore says, appearing not to notice Lorelai's flippant comments. "She told me ... " He clears his throat, and Luke grabs Lorelai's hand in a request for silence from her. Whatever Mr. Gilmore is about to say is important. "Your mother told me to inform the maid to change the linen and the bedclothes, as she thought that I was not likely to have remembered to tell the new girl that we prefer to have them changed every three days as opposed to once a week."

It sounds like Mrs. Gilmore is coming home. This information seems not to phase Lorelai.

"That's good, Dad! I guess that I'll finally get my daughter back next week." Lorelai places her spoon in her dish and wipes her mouth. "Now, we're going to leave, because I have reservations for an activity, and they're in forty-five minutes. You know how traffic can be."

Mr. Gilmore is all absent-minded businessman once more.

"Yes, yes, of course, Lorelai."

Luke helps Lorelai out of her seat, then the three of them leave the dining room for the hallway. Awkwardly slipping Lorelai and himself into their jackets, they make their good-byes to Mr. Gilmore, with Lorelai pausing her teasing long enough to give her father a kiss on the cheek.

On the way to the car, Luke asks her, "You knew, didn't you?"

She doesn't answer directly.

"When I was a little girl, I used to plot ways for them to split, like a reverse Parent Trap, only I didn't have a twin and wasn't a cute blonde. They were always bickering over something trivial, always pettifogging with one another." While he opens the car door, she blows a strand of hair out of her face. "And suddenly, I get my wish. Only it's not so nice anymore, because Dad is wretched and lost, and Mom has nothing to do with herself except think of reasons why this is the right thing to do, except for the fact that it isn't."

Luke turns the key.

"Yeah."

"Rory could see it in Emily, I could see it in Richard," Lorelai continues. "So we've spent half of Rory's vacation trying to make peace between the two of them. Richard was easy. You see how much he idolizes and admires my mother. And Emily ... Emily was much more difficult, because admitting that it couldn't just take love was hard enough, but allowing that maybe it was the first step to repairing her marriage seems like a lateral move to her."

Luke has had enough experience with Lorelai's mother to know that Mrs. Gilmore moves forward or not at all. Even leaving her husband: to Emily Gilmore, it was half a step back, capitulating to the stresses of marriage; but it was also a full step forward, doing something about it once she had decided that defeat was inevitable. Except, of course, defeat _isn't_ inevitable, because she's coming home to her husband, isn't she?

For a strong woman like Emily, that is probably one of the hardest steps that she will ever have to make, returning like a cat with its tail between her legs. Luke has a feeling that she will have a lion's will and a gorilla's exertion of will, so she will not quite be the dependant and defenseless wife; not that he thinks for a moment that she ever was, though she may have played one for society.

"For Christmas," Luke says thoughtfully, "we'll buy them time with a couple's therapist."

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**read and review!**


	8. chapter eight

**disclaimer in the first chapter  
author's note**: thanks for all of the kind reviews, especially for the ubercrazy one that appeared in my inbox last night...you know who you are. Hilarious -- cuz it reminded me of me in a review. :-D

* * *

They are two minutes early for their appointment; Kirk is waiting for them at the stables, face bright and nose rather red from the somewhat chilly night air. Luke grumbles only slightly as he helps Lorelai into the carriage. It's a gorgeous, old-fashioned deal, with a sheltered area for whomever is riding inside and a place up top for the driver to perch himself.

"Do you like it?" Kirk asks anxiously. "It's a renovated stage coach. I bought it off of eBay. Had to outbid a Wild West aficionado in Tokyo."

"It's ... enclosed." Luke can't think of another way to describe the carriage. Sure, it offers privacy, but Luke thinks that the entire reason for taking a carriage-ride in the night is so that one can look up and view the stars with someone close to one. It isn't like the carriage can be used for an emergency make-out session, either. It's not _that_ shielded from the outside world; the windows have no panes. Also, there is some sort of shelf extending over his head, and he has to slouch a bit.

Lorelai makes a shuddering movement as Kirk closes the door before clambering on up to his post.

"If I were claustrophobic, I would be two seconds away from throwing up all over you." She rests her head on his shoulder, then snorts. "Don't look now, but I see something brighter than the moon glarin' at us."

Luke glances straight ahead and catches an eyeful of several inches of very white ankles in black socks and dress shoes. Geeze, Kirk seems to get more and more pale each time Luke happens to catch a glimpse of his skin (and, well, he knows the color of Kirk's skin fairly well, it pains him to admit).

"Curtains," he says. "You'll need curtains."

"A-yup."

The carriage lurches forward with a sudden, jarring start. Lorelai is thrown from her seat into the middle of the coach. Luke leans down and helps her up, sitting her next to him and gripping her arm tightly lest she should take another fly.

"That was elegant."

"We need to get this entire room cushioned or padded."

"Are we the first to test out this sideshow ride?" asks Luke. Lorelai shrugs. "Great."

"Hey, don't think of it like an extremely bumpy carnival ride," she says. "Think of it like it's one of those vibrating beds like in the motel rooms."

"_What_?"

"Yeah, that was so much better in my head." She clutches his arm more tightly as they go down a particularly bumpy patch of gravel. "When I was -- ow! watch it, Kirk! -- a kid, I used to dream about going to a motel and trying out one of those vibrating beds. I had this idea that I would show up with twenty dollars in quarters and spend an afternoon there."

"You ever get to try it?"

"Rory was seven." Even in the dim light, Luke can see her smile softly. "She threw up all over the place, including our luggage. But it was great."

They dip into a soft silence after that, adjusting to the buzzing in their bodies because of the rough ride. Lorelai lets out a low hum, an acoustic measurement of the velocity of the carriage's jolting.

Her humming gets a good deal more intense; louder and deeper. In fact, it sounds just a tad to deep to be her. Luke glances at her, but she's playing with a jacket on his coat and isn't paying attention to much of anything else. He's about to say something -- he has his mouth open! -- when suddenly the humming breaks into singing.

For the first moment or two, he's too shocked to try to figure out what's happening. It enters his brain, dimly, that someone is crooning a love song in a crooked, creaking voice. It certainly isn't Lorelai, as the voice is most definitely masculine. And yet ... there seems to be a certain trait to it ...

Three seconds into the song, it hits him.

"_It's Kirk_," he tells Lorelai, feeling as if the anger will seethe out of his very pores.

Lorelai reaches up and taps on the paneling beside Kirk's ankles. The singing does not desist. She bangs a little harder. If anything, the song goes on with more intensity, though Luke thought that maybe it was modified slightly in order to fit the beat of Lorelai's knocking.

Luke reaches over and yanks on Kirk's pants, a pull cord doorbell. The screeching stops, and, suddenly, Kirk's head appears between his ankles. Luke shudders at how flexible Kirk is, disturbing images flitting through his mind.

"Kirk, what are you doing?" Lorelai asks in a voice all too calm for Luke's liking. He decides to put in his own two cents.

"Kirk!" he screams. And then, again, "Kirk!"

Even upside down, looking down at them from his perch above, Kirk gives the appearance of a disrespected elder, throwing his heavy eyebrows to his hairline and making his eyes follow suit, his mouth fashioned into a frown.

"I," he explains patiently, as if to a very small child (Luke mentally prepares to strangle Kirk), "was serenading you."

Oh, geeze.

"Kirk," Lorelai quips, "your asonia is well-known, no need to demonstrate."

Luke is not halfway near as amused by Kirk's declaration as she seems to be.

"You were _what_?"

"Serenading you. It's romantic. It's a little sumpin-sumpin" (and Kirk makes that the most white-sounding thing that he's ever uttered, Luke notes) "to take away your anxiety about performing." He swings back proper side up, and once more all that they see of him are his thin legs.

"Anxiety ... about ... _performing_?"

Luke hates how Kirk always brings out the emphasis in his speech. It isn't enough that the man drives him crazy; no, Kirk must also make Luke's speech patterns as strained and unusual as possible. Sometimes, Luke feels that if he doesn't go hoarse from screaming at Taylor, he will from the wild ups and downs his voice takes when he's talking to Kirk.

"Well, I know that you and Lorelai have yet to consu--" but Kirk can't finish, because Luke yanks up and pulls Kirk down with several thuds and a disturbingly nasty sounding crack. "Ouch!"

"Does the entire town know that we haven't slept together yet?" Luke hisses at Lorelai.

"I don't know!" she wails. "I've been drinking less coffee, you think that they would've noticed!"

"What does coffee have to do with this?"

"_Everything_."

Luke really doesn't know how to respond to that. He starts drumming his fingers on the wooden structure of the coach.

"Okay, what?"

"I drink coffee." Lorelai's whisper becomes strained in her agitation. "I drink less coffee when I'm, you know, active."

"Active?" Oh, God, please don't let her say it. He doesn't want to notice every little bit of coffee that she's drinking and know that she's active or not, even if he very well knows if she is or not. It is right up there with knowing her cycle. People think it's personal and oh-so-couple, but how can one enjoy knowing it? It's just disturbing, the coffee thing, that is.

"Having sex, Luke!" Ah, yes, she said it. Luke manages to hit his head on an overhanging as he sits of straighter. "I drink less coffee when I'm having sex, and apparently the entire town knows those."

"_I_ don't know this!" His lowered tones take on a bit of irony.

"Well, yes, apparently you go to the Luke Danes School of Denial."

He's been a top student there for several years, first majoring in Denial of Interest, then adding others along the way, including Denial of Attraction, Denial of Fantasy That Is about Lorelai, and Denial of Insanity.

"Are you sure you're not overreacting? The whole town can't know."

"Mrs. Kim made a reference to it."

"Ah." Well, then. Though they've been speaking in whispers, he lowers his voice even more. "So, wait, you've been drinking less coffee in order to dupe the town into thinking that you and I have been sleeping together?"

"Yes."

Bless her, she didn't seem to be at all in jest.

"I'm ... glad that you were trying to protect my manly position in this town, but you didn't need to do that."

"I was trying to get into a state of mind."

Lorelai Gilmore has to get into a state of mind in order to sleep with her boyfriend Luke Danes.

"Let's talk about this in the room," he says as he motions with his head toward Kirk.

He's not angry, he's not. He's just, well, frustrated by Lorelai's actions. He tries to relax, a bit, and wonders if Kirk heard anything that he and Lorelai were talking about. The man has very good hearing, so it's quite possible that he did. However, he thought that he was creating a lot of background noise which might have distracted Kirk.

"Do you think he heard anything?" she whispers.

"No," Kirk answered. "I didn't hear anything."

"Oh, good," Luke replies sarcastically.

****

"You know, Lorelai, Luke, I can tell that you two kids really love each other." Kirk lets out a long breath. Lorelai snickers into her hand. "You look at each other the way that Lulu and I do. When I look at Lulu, I have this certain quality in my gaze that just screams --"

"'Norman Bates?'" suggests Luke under his breath. Lorelai stops her sniggering long enough to elbow him with a grin. He can't tell if she's encouraging him or asking him to be nice to Kirk.

"-- devotion. Lulu makes my eyes shine out, and your eyes are bright like the sun. It's a wonder you haven't blinded each other, because you're not supposed to look directly into the sun."

A cloud bursts above them, and they are assaulted by a random storm, pebble-like drops of rain pelting them with a heavy hand. Kirk squeals.

"I suppose that it's a good thing we'd already planned on going back to the room."

"Do you think," Lorelai asks over Kirk's girlish screams of distress, "if he realizes that he's already turned the carriage around toward the Dragonfly?"

The ride back to their room is quiet, partially because Luke was trying to figure out what to say once they were alone, partially because Kirk was still making little noises every time a drop of water hit him. They dashed out of the cab, Lorelai calling last minute instruction to Kirk to make sure he dries 'the pluvial run' off of the horses, and into the bungalow.

Though they dashed, they're both dripping wet. Lorelai grabs a towel from the bathroom immediately and starts drying her hair. He manages to rummage through the wardrobe and find two incredibly clean-looking robes. He tosses her one, and she catches it mid-air.

"Wait, I've got just the thing," and Lorelai turns to her bag.

"I don't think you'll find a hot coffee in there," he tries, an attempt at making the mood lighter.

"Here," she says, handing him a large, thick pair of woolen socks from out of her purse. "These are my dad's. That means that they probably cost more than everything that you and I are wearing put together." She stops and quirks a brow at him, as he stares at the socks in his hands. "I know that you have a really bad history with socks, but these are family."

So then he kisses her, because that's the only thing that he can think of to do when she hands him her father's socks.

"Hey," he says when they're done, dipping down to touch foreheads with her. They stand there, forehead to forehead, just looking at one another, for several moments.

"Hey," she at last replies, nuzzling his nose with her own. "You really don't wanna wear those socks, do you?"

"I just wanted to say something."

He waits for her consent, as he really doesn't want to begin this and have her interrupt him halfway through. Luke remedies that thought. He doesn't want her to interrupt him in order to _stop_ him halfway through.

"Go ahead."

He feels like he's sixteen.

"We don't have to have sex." Ah, yes, there it is, with the teenage appropriate line. "What I meant to say is that, obviously, you're still in an adjustment period with us."

"Oh, God, Luke, I'm so _sorry_," Lorelai exclaims. "No, it's not that I don't want to have sex with you. I do, I do want to have sex with you."

"Good."

"I want to have _lots _and _lots_ of sex with you."

"And I want to have lots and lots of sex with you, Lorelai. So what is it?"

"I just ..." Lorelai trails off. "I don't know! I just wanted our first time to be special. It has to be perfect, you know."

Luke stares at her, as she's clearly gone mad.

"It won't be perfect."

"No, it -- what?" She blinks. "That's not your line. Your line is, oh, 'Don't worry, Lorelai, it'll be perfect because it's _us_,' which would be your way of trying to make me feel better but would only serve to prove my point."

"We're following a script now? No wonder that I'm always so lost."

"I'm trying to be serious here, Luke."

He throws his hands up in frustration.

"What do you want, Lorelai?" he asks. "Do you think that our relationship comes with a list? The top ten ways to get into bed with Luke Danes without breaking a dinner plate? Because it doesn't! It's trial and error, it's two people who are comfortable enough to go to the next level!" He lowers his voice. "You have to understand that."

"You come with a list?

"More along the line of instructions, now that I think of it."

"Well," Lorelai laughs, not exactly nervous but well away from it. "That is certainly something to keep in mind." She sighs. "I'm sorry. I know that it's me, and I'm terrible. I just don't want to disappoint you."

"You're not going to live up to every single expectation that everybody has for you, Lorelai," he says. "I'm not your mother. I don't expect our first time to be magically wonderful."

"God, if my mother expects our first time to be magically wonderful, I'm seeing a shrink."

"Lorelai."

"I know. I just -- we're so _good_ for each other."

"Exactly: good but not perfect." Luke sighs. "You know, life's never going to be perfect for us. For one thing, you're always going to talk too much."

He pauses, waiting for it. Lorelai looks up at him, and he sees her face quirk in understanding; he's not long in limbo.

"You're always going to wear too much flannel."

He smiles. He knows her too well. This is what their relationship is made out of: sometimes bickering, sometimes Lorelai acting absolutely insane, sometimes just understanding what one is trying to say without the other having to come with Scrabble tiles and spell it out.

Is this comfort in their relationship already, or is it a false lull? Luke finds that he doesn't care, as long as he can continue just _being_ with Lorelai for the longest of times. He knows that they're going to have times when he's going to look up and find that she's done something upsetting, but he also knows that those pass. Isn't that what a relationship is all about?

And so he says: "But we're going to be fine, Lorelai."

"We're gonna be fine. Not perfect. But fine works for me."

"Yeah."

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**_finis_**

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